Questions on Measurement

[solderdude]

For example, I like transducers with a "BBC-dip" around 2-3 kHz. Especially when listening to metal. People telling me that a ruler flat frequency response is "correct" is just not helpful; I don't enjoy listening to that sound, plain and simple. In hifi shops knowledgeable salesman used to recommend speakers to people based on their genre preferences, which is the "correct" way to go about things if you're after maximising your enjoyment, not adhering to some "rules flat response curves are good" arbitrary ideal.

Transducers ... agreed.
Transducers in a room... agreed.
A matter of taste and circumstances (acoustics) as well as recording (as well as ear-gain when it comes to the BBC-dip).

DAC's, amps, transports, cables etc will all NEVER have a 'BBC dip'.

Nothing wrong with maximizing enjoyment for personal usage.
When this is done during the mixing process you are not going to have a good recording.
Any decent studio will not have their monitors selected for 'maximum enjoyment' but for 'accuracy'.

When you want the same accuracy in your home then you don't want BBC dips or coloration.
What's wrong with selecting gear for that purpose and checking to see if gear can do that ?

As for people not believing you on your blue eyes that you can hear differences between DACs.
This would depend on whether or not this is done 'sighted' and can depend on the used filter and output level and above all how you tested.
What is questioned here is whether or not the comparison is done level matched, equal reconstruction filter, blind and statistically valid.
If not.. then your observation is likely incorrect and can not be used in a court of law.

That's what this is all about (people not believing your observation/opinion having any merit).
That's what's meant with 'you are doing it wrong' ... the test method you use. NOT the part about having a preference nor preferring some coloration (for certain music genres or for other reasons).
A personal observation is just that.
It could be the gear it could be your brain.
You cannot tell for certain because it is unlikely you tested 'properly'.

 

[voodooless]

@Rincewind42 , your essence boils down to these age old audiophile tropes:

If I hear a difference, it’s real enough for me.
If measurements disagree, they’re incomplete.
If controls disagree, they’re too narrow.
If others don’t hear it, they’re less trained or less sensitive.

All neatly dressed up with the usual word-storm, with the language of nuance, humility, art, and open-mindedness. It’s like trying to sell the emperor no clothes.

 

[Rincewind42]

In a properly conducted double blind test and assuming your DACs aren’t broken, I bet you can’t…

You would lose that bet. As I said, it's trivially easy to spot the difference (with the prerequisites I listed above). Instead of believing things, why don't you try it with highly resolving components? I didn't believe it previously either until I tried.

The biggest difference is probably not the DAC chip itself, but the analog circuitry built around it and the filters. Still, you can't listen to "just the DAC", but the post-analog output stage sound.

 

[Rincewind42]

All neatly dressed up with the usual word-storm, with the language of nuance, humility, art, and open-mindedness. It’s like trying to sell the emperor no clothes.

Lol. Why do you need to believe everything sounds the same?

 

[Rincewind42]

Any decent studio will not have their monitors selected for 'maximum enjoyment' but for 'accuracy'.

Mostly linear frequency response is a good baseline, plus personal EQ curves. Invidual preference very much comes into play, many mixing engineers EQ their monitors to their liking. E.g. I'm treble averse, so with linear treble my mixes are usually too dark. Pretty common for mixing guys to apply a low shelf as "pre-emphasis" to the final result comes out "just right".

But yeah, I agree, for mixing I would use a mostly flat and neutral gear. However, listening is different; right now I'm having a great time listening to my old mixes done on Dynaudios on my new pair of Grados

Out of curiosity, are you a composer/mixing engineer? How many albums have you mixed? I have done 8 albums so far, and many other songs that never ended up on an album in the past 2-3 decades.

If not.. then your observation is likely incorrect and can not be used in a court of law.

Lol man Are you serious? "Court of law" LFMAO.

I don't give much shits about who believes me or not, everybody just gotta try and hear for himself (if someone is curious). All I'm saying, I hear the difference, so categorical statements like "no you cannot hear the difference" are obviously wrong. That's basically gaslighting.

 

[voodooless]

Lol. Why do you need to believe everything sounds the same?

Why bring up another straw man?

 

[RexrothPigeon]

I hear the difference, so categorical statements like "no you cannot hear the difference" are obviously wrong.

Unless you've done this under controlled, blind conditions, you cannot say you hear the difference, since your hearing is not isolated from other--far more powerful!--factors. We know this to be true from many many previous examples and studies.

And when one makes extraordinary claims that are at odds with vast amounts of data and long-established principles, he must do better than "trust me bro" to merit any credibility here on Audio Science Review.

 

[Jaxx1138]

Mostly linear frequency response is a good baseline, plus personal EQ curves. Invidual preference very much comes into play, many mixing engineers EQ their monitors to their liking. E.g. I'm treble averse, so with linear treble my mixes are usually too dark. Pretty common for mixing guys to apply a low shelf as "pre-emphasis" to the final result comes out "just right".

But yeah, I agree, for mixing I would use a mostly flat and neutral gear. However, listening is different; right now I'm having a great time listening to my old mixes done on Dynaudios on my new pair of Grados

Out of curiosity, are you a composer/mixing engineer? How many albums have you mixed? I have done 8 albums so far, and many other songs that never ended up on an album in the past 2-3 decades.


Lol man Are you serious? "Court of law" LFMAO.

I don't give much shits about who believes me or not, everybody just gotta try and hear for himself (if someone is curious). All I'm saying, I hear the difference, so categorical statements like "no you cannot hear the difference" are obviously wrong. That's basically gaslighting.

What appears to be your perspective is that music production and music reproduction are somehow overlapping.To conflate these two elements is a tragic error in your logic. Music production is about creative subjectivism. Whereas music reproduction is all science and an objective matter. How the music makes you feel is a subjective matter. This has nothing to do with any part of the reproduction and its ability to recreate that recording accurately. The quantification of the sound has nothing to do with your opinion. Your preferences do not determine if a component is functioning in a linear manner. What you personally enjoy is subjective matter and we do not quantify that with a metric. But we can indeed quantify what the acoustical, mechanical and electrical level of accuracy of a given piece of equipment actually is. If the goal is to be accurate (as it is in sound reproduction) then we know for a fact if we are getting closer too or further away from the goal of theoretically perfect sound by those measurements. Music is all about feeling. It communicates feeling. You absolutely do not want your DAC, preamp, amplifier attempting to do that (from a perfect fidelity point of view). You want those components and/or loudspeakers to do EXACTLY what was recorded and intended by the producer/artist/engineer. The science serves the art.

Belief is faith based. Knowing is fact based.

 

[Alan O]

Interesting thread, though I'm not going to get into the "measurements vs listening" thing in general... there's nothing I can say that hasn't already been exhausted.

There's just one point I would like to comment on, and that's comparing studio production with home reproduction. In the studio, the musicians, engineers, etc will use equipment, settings, etc based on what they sound like and not based on measurements of accuracy. And that's as it should be, because they're creating the sound and they know the sound they're trying to achieve. Yes, they'll use different microphones for different vocalists, different genres, etc... because they're trying to create different sounds, not accurately reproduce the human voice.

Similarly, guitarists use different amps/settings/pedals when they want to achieve different sounds... The amp is effectively part of the instrument, and guitar amps (pedals etc) have all sorts of settings deliberately intended to change the sound.

Home reproduction equipment has a different purpose, which is (generally) to reproduce whatever goes in as accurately as possible. Yes, there's plenty of overlap in some specific areas where engineers and listeners want equipment to do exactly the same thing (dare I utter the word "cables"?)

But I do think it's important not to generally conflate how a production engineer goes about their job with how a home audio enthusiast should select their equipment. I'd never use my hifi amps for playing guitar. And I'd never play my digital music collection through one of my guitar amps.

 

[solderdude]

many mixing engineers EQ their monitors to their liking

The good ones in the bigger studio's don't for sure. They hire folks to calibrate their studio monitors for them.
They also use specific monitors for certain aspects where they know how that translates to reality.
Besides it is possible to mix on 'not entirely flat' monitors as long as the engineer knows how sound should sound on their monitors but it is poor 'audio hygiene'.

Lol man Are you serious? "Court of law" LFMAO.

You know darn well what I meant ...

All I'm saying, I hear the difference, so categorical statements like "no you cannot hear the difference" are obviously wrong.

But... and there's the rub ... you also cannot be 100% sure the differences you perceived are of technical origin.
Psycho-acoustic research is EXTREMELY clear on that. It should not be ignored but is often dismissed as 'not being an option because I clearly heard it.

And no I am not a mixing engineer/producer.

In the studio, the musicians, engineers, etc will use equipment, settings, etc based on what they sound like and not based on measurements of accuracy

Answer me this .... suppose the engineer uses speakers with a non-linear response and then adjusts the sound to how they like it... how do they know that the end result will have the same sound on 'good performing loudspeakers ?
Some engineers are so used to certain well known 'monitors' so that they can be used for specific purposes but these are not used to mix on.
It makes no sense UNLESS that engineer knows those monitors inside-out and knows how those monitors should sound. This could kind of work when one only has 1 type of monitor, knows how it should sound AND no other engineers use it.

Nope ... monitors need to be 'flat' and if the engineer (and or artist) wants to be creative and make something 'nice' then the monitors HAVE to be flat in order to create that specific sound and not create a specific sound on a particularly colored speaker.
They can only properly adjust sound when the monitor is properly calibrated.

 

[popej]

All I'm saying, I hear the difference, so categorical statements like "no you cannot hear the difference" are obviously wrong.

Right, that kind of statement would be wrong. But maybe you misunderstand it? General reasoning is, that while you hear the difference, it can't be attributed to the gear you test, because of the flows of testing method. You perceive the result but you mistake the cause.

 

[MatrixS2000]

II assume something sent over the speaker wire is different or it's in the reviewers head.

Soundstage is file locked in a music file - meaning that is encoded into the bits as per the final audio engineer’s rendering of that track. For something external to change it, that external box would need processing power like a DAW or DSP - something an amplifier does not have.

 

[Rincewind42]

Answer me this .... suppose the engineer uses speakers with a non-linear response and then adjusts the sound to how they like it... how do they know that the end result will have the same sound on 'good performing loudspeakers ?
Some engineers are so used to certain well known 'monitors' so that they can be used for specific purposes but these are not used to mix on.
It makes no sense UNLESS that engineer knows those monitors inside-out and knows how those monitors should sound. This could kind of work when one only has 1 type of monitor, knows how it should sound AND no other engineers use it.

Nope ... monitors need to be 'flat' and if the engineer (and or artist) wants to be creative and make something 'nice' then the monitors HAVE to be flat in order to create that specific sound and not create a specific sound on a particularly colored speaker.
They can only properly adjust sound when the monitor is properly calibrated.

How it works in real life is you can mix on pretty much anything that's not totally broken as you long as you know it well. And referencing other "known good" mixes.

Many classic mixes have been done on Auratones, the horrific Yamaha NS10s, etc. Then usually they check the mixes on a lot of consumer speakers, all they can get their hands on to make sure it translates well to laptop speakers, phones, small stereos, cars, big stereos, etc. Plenty of info about this on Gearspace from many well-establishes mixers.

It's a game of averages.

 

[Purité Audio]

But why would you choose to create using ‘broken’ equipment when transparent transducers are readily available.
Keith

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

You would lose that bet. As I said, it's trivially easy to spot the difference (with the prerequisites I listed above). Instead of believing things, why don't you try it with highly resolving components? I didn't believe it previously either until I tried.

Been there done that. I've had "highly resolving" components on which I could easily tell the difference between DACs that came into my system. That is, until I tried telling the difference "blind". The results were sobering and I didn't believe it previously either until I tried.

So no, I wouldn't lose the bet.

 

[Alan O]

Answer me this .... suppose the engineer uses speakers with a non-linear response and then adjusts the sound to how they like it... how do they know that the end result will have the same sound on 'good performing loudspeakers ?
Some engineers are so used to certain well known 'monitors' so that they can be used for specific purposes but these are not used to mix on.
It makes no sense UNLESS that engineer knows those monitors inside-out and knows how those monitors should sound. This could kind of work when one only has 1 type of monitor, knows how it should sound AND no other engineers use it.

Nope ... monitors need to be 'flat' and if the engineer (and or artist) wants to be creative and make something 'nice' then the monitors HAVE to be flat in order to create that specific sound and not create a specific sound on a particularly colored speaker.
They can only properly adjust sound when the monitor is properly calibrated

I largely agree, and never meant to suggest engineers subjectively choose non-linear speakers - which is why studio monitors are a thing (although different engineers prefer different monitors). But even with their linear monitors, they're still aiming at a chosen subjective sound. Monitors aren't recording equipment, they're listening equipment - and linear monitors are clearly preferable for checking if the choice of recording equipment and techniques has produced the intended, subjective, sound.

My point is not about how engineers listen to the sound they've created, it's about how they create it: recording = create a subjective sound, playback = reproduce that sound as accurately as possible, and I still think it's a mistake to conflate the two.

 

[Alan O]

Been there done that. I've had "highly resolving" components on which I could easily tell the difference...

I've even had modest equipment which really wouldn't be considered "highly resolving", with which I've easily heard differences... until I tried that blind thing.

(Btw, what does "highly resolving" mean anyway? In my limited experience, it seems to mean "more expensive than *your* gear" )

 

[Purité Audio]

No such thing as ‘modest’ or ‘highly resolving’ just well engineered and not so well engineered.
Keith

 

[solderdude]

I still think it's a mistake to conflate the two.

It is a mistake to draw parallels between the creative process and reproduction process.
These are not related at all and someone building a studio usually does not go to a hifi-shop buy some speakers he thought sounded good in a demo room and also bought some (AV) amp to go with it.

In the production process it is important to have a reference.
This is what is called circle of confusion.
Get the monitoring wrong and the result is wrong.
So yes, the monitor + everything around it including the ears of the mixing/producer/mastering engineer is paramount.
One needs to get the monitors right. Buying 'flat on axis' monitors is not enough as placement and the room it is in is important as well as the listening position.

Monitors need to be calibrated (similar as to what one does with room correction for playback) so the sound is 'correct' at studio reference level (80-85dB average)

Then for reproduction there are 2 'ways'.
Either go for a similar 'tone' and quality as is used in a (good) studio and optimize the room or use EQ.
A 'promise' for good sound and if some recordings sound 'poor' then it is recorded poor and so be it.
Or you go for 'whatever brings you joy' and fool around with all things one thinks(knows/believes) that matters and try to make as many recordings as possible sound 'good'. The bag of tricks and price ranges are endless, the search is endless, the tweaking and buying other gear (that others say sound 'better') is endless.

I am not here to tell anyone what road to take but the 2nd road is NOT suited for a studio, only the first road is.

 

[solderdude]

How it works in real life is you can mix on pretty much anything that's not totally broken as you long as you know it well. And referencing other "known good" mixes.

Partly agree... but only if no one else uses that gear and/or one isn't totally 'known' with the gear/room.
So that is a bad way to setup a studio but one could pull it off (with some luck) in their home studio.
Still... one has to have a reference (or a couple of references) at one point to understand how those monitors translate to the recording.

And no ... nobody produces on aura tones and the ones actually using NS10's (for some silly reason).
They use these speakers as tools during the entire process not as mains.