Some interesting thoughts from mastering engineer Bob Katz

[Dialectic]

The Weiss YouTube channel recently posted a playlist of mastering engineer Bob Katz answering some questions of interest to most ASR members.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeQ66z6tSzBVRNQ6Wk_DJM4Xt7JVMIHfD&feature=shared

 

[dasdoing]

I am happy that the "oops it was bypassed" happens even to him lol

 

[kemmler3D]

I am happy that the "oops it was bypassed" happens even to him lol

100% - I wish the subjectivists would understand this. I've heard bigger changes than they claim to hear from this or that "tweak" in an "oops it was bypassed" scenario. There is no faster cure for a golden ear ego than that...

 

[DVDdoug]

I'll watch the video later but I've read some of what he's written (some of it from his website digido.com) and he seems to be one of the "good guys".

 

[dasdoing]

100% - I wish the subjectivists would understand this. I've heard bigger changes than they claim to hear from this or that "tweak" in an "oops it was bypassed" scenario. There is no faster cure for a golden ear ego than that...

yea, optical stimuli are dominant. Having lights on and off can change the perception a lot for example

 

[egellings]

100% - I wish the subjectivists would understand this. I've heard bigger changes than they claim to hear from this or that "tweak" in an "oops it was bypassed" scenario. There is no faster cure for a golden ear ego than that...

A buddy of mine was into RCA interconnect cables and thought they were a significant contributor to S.Q. He had no electrical engineering knowledge whatsoever (did not even finish high school), and I'd best describe him as a self-anointed, true believer guru. Well, he decided that he could design an interconnect (RCA cable) that would take the 'skew' out of the sound, whatever that was, and, they would mercilessly trounce any other price-no-object cable out there. So, he cobbled some together and took them to audio stores & acquaintances and gooped on the snake oil sales pitches. I visited him a few times, and he demoed the cables relentlessly to me, rhapsodizing over the sound quality and complete absence of 'skew'. They worked, doing the same job any reasonable cable would do. Welp, I decided to test him. I brought along some cheapie gray cables that came free with a cheap CD player (You know where this is going!). He had music playing on his system. There was a pizza place just a few doors away from where he lived, and we ordered a pie. He went out to pick it up. I did the unthinkable; I swapped my cheapies for his fancy cables between the preamp and power amp and hid the fancy ones behind the equipment rack. He came back with the pie and continued to rhapsodize of the sound, not knowing of my nefarious trick. I left for the night and a couple of days later I got a phone call on my message recorder: Earl, you sunnuvabitch! End of friendship. Good riddance.

 

[kemmler3D]

End of friendship. Good riddance.

Wow! I guess he really did believe in his unearned, nonexistent audio engineering skills. I would have assumed he'd have a sense of humor about it, guess not. Sounds like you were better off without the guy then.

 

[fpitas]

Maybe the cheap CD player came with golden ear cables

 

[egellings]

Maybe the cheap CD player came with golden ear cables

If it did, the S.Q. still would not have changed. Both cables would then have been golden, and would therefore have that same, superlative sound.

 

[earlevel]

Hesitant to post this, because I don't want it to be misinterpreted as calling out Bob, whom I respect. But it's pretty much par for the course in the understanding level of audio engineers. Simply because few are physicist or electrical engineers, and have no reason to their findings, especially when their colleagues would agree whole-heartedly with them.

Bob Katz (in a FB thread I was involved in):

"My system has enough resolution and the room is quiet enough to audibly reproduce a -141 dBFS 1 kHz sine wave. It can be heard with your ear 1 foot from the speakers. And you can tell if the tone is or is not dithered to 24 bits."

This was one of three contentions in that post; he added a disclaimer, 'However, proving these contentions blind has proved to be very difficult if not impossible for me. So skeptics can line up on the side of "if you can't hear it, then it doesn't matter." But ignore the fact that cumulative errors rear their ugly heads in a complex signal chain, and sound quality can turn from clean and pure to dirty as what was formerly not audible (apparently) overcome the threshold of audibility after a few generations of processing or gain/leveling. Better safe than sorry, as Ian says. And acknowledge that experienced and ear-trained professionals and mastering engineers know of what we speak. Play it safe, follow good practice and you will be rewarded with better sound on the final master generation.'

Nevertheless it's difficult to dismiss the specificity of his claim. He truly believes he can hear -141 dBFS 1 kHz at 1 ft. I asked him for details on the test, he replied,

"It's quite simple. You play the test tone and reduce its level until it disappears into the noise. In order to hear the -141 dBFS sine I do have to raise the monitor gain about 6 dB over SMPTE RP 200 calibration and bring my ears to within a foot of the loudspeaker. But still it's an amazing demonstration of the low level resolution and low noise of the Quantum DAC in the Cranesong Avocet."

Of course, he's raising the monitoring level 6 dB and getting a foot away; he didn't mention his normal monitoring distance, but basically he's admitting that he's 10-20 dB away from actually hearing it, but even that doesn't account for the noise coming from the speakers and the room. Also, I've seen this before in tests of decreasing volume when the listener is asked to signal when they can no longer hear the tone. In particular, when the test tone actually disappears completely at some point (for instance, due to a transcoding issue when making the test into an internet video). People seem to invariably signal several steps past the point where the tone has gone silent. It seems to take a few seconds to come to grips with the signal having slipped away.

 

[dasdoing]

it's an amazing demonstration of the low level resolution and low noise of the Quantum DAC in the Cranesong Avocet

He seams to be making a lot of his money by endorsing products. Every time he mentions a product I take his opinions with a grain of salt

 

[ahofer]

: Earl, you sunnuvabitch! End of friendship.

Should be followed by “you punctured my illusion”.

Weird thing to end a friendship over.

 

[nomograf]

Nevertheless it's difficult to dismiss the specificity of his claim. He truly believes he can hear -141 dBFS 1 kHz at 1 ft. I asked him for details on the test, he replied,

"It's quite simple. You play the test tone and reduce its level until it disappears into the noise. In order to hear the -141 dBFS sine I do have to raise the monitor gain about 6 dB over SMPTE RP 200 calibration and bring my ears to within a foot of the loudspeaker. But still it's an amazing demonstration of the low level resolution and low noise of the Quantum DAC in the Cranesong Avocet."

Of course, he's raising the monitoring level 6 dB and getting a foot away; he didn't mention his normal monitoring distance, but basically he's admitting that he's 10-20 dB away from actually hearing it, but even that doesn't account for the noise coming from the speakers and the room. Also, I've seen this before in tests of decreasing volume when the listener is asked to signal when they can no longer hear the tone. In particular, when the test tone actually disappears completely at some point (for instance, due to a transcoding issue when making the test into an internet video). People seem to invariably signal several steps past the point where the tone has gone silent. It seems to take a few seconds to come to grips with the signal having slipped away.

The fact that he thinks this "test" means anything at all should tell you everything you need to know.

 

[danadam]

Of course, he's raising the monitoring level 6 dB and getting a foot away; he didn't mention his normal monitoring distance, but basically he's admitting that he's 10-20 dB away from actually hearing it,

And that's 1 kHz, which would mean he can hear 3-4 kHz even without raising the level (if I believed he actually can).

 

[boxerfan88]

Nevertheless it's difficult to dismiss the specificity of his claim. He truly believes he can hear -141 dBFS 1 kHz at 1 ft. I asked him for details on the test, he replied,

Could it possibly be tinnitus?

 

[nomograf]

I wouldn't inconvenience electrons to engage with his starting point.

 

[egellings]

Should be followed by “you punctured my illusion”.

Weird thing to end a friendship over.

Some people don't like their egos punctured, I guess. In that particular incident, he proved to himself that he could not hear a difference between the two cables. He didn't just shoot himself in the foot; he shot the toes off individually, one by one.

 

[egellings]

Maybe the cheap CD player came with golden ear cables

Well, he demoed to himself in no uncertain terms that he could not hear a difference between the two cables.

 

[fpitas]

Well, he demoed to himself in no uncertain terms that he could not hear a difference between the two cables.

Amazing that the CD manufacturer spent money on all that advanced engineering and splurged on boutique materials.

 

[Philbo King]

Bob K is a deeply experienced mastering engineer respected around the world. With a professionally built studio and world class gear. So cast doubt if you like... that's your bidness.