Totem Acoustics Rainmaker Speaker Review

[Jim Taylor]

A provocative statement: the farther away one sits in a concert hall, the less one is able to discern timbral subtleties in the musical instruments and voices.

This is not provocative, it's logical. The further you sit from the music source, the greater the percentage of reverberance in the signal. That tends to swamp the finer characteristics of the instruments and voices.
Years ago, I would sneak into the college theater to listen to the orchestra rehearse. I had to be careful not to annoy the conductor, so I generally sat in the back row. Occasionally, I was allowed to sit in about the tenth row (if I behaved myself ) and the difference was amazing ... especially for violins.

Yes, distance and reverberation can be monstrously important.

 

[MattHooper]

A provocative statement: the farther away one sits in a concert hall, the less one is able to discern timbral subtleties in the musical instruments and voices.

This is exactly why I have always chosen seats close to the Orchestra, central if possible. I happen to love both the Cinemascope spread of the sound at that distance, as well as the more vivid timbral nuance of the different instruments.
For me, it’s a richer sound.

Not coincidentally, for recordings I quite enjoy vividly mic’d orchestra, so I have no problem with the “ close-up sound” in many recordings.
I am a longtime fan of movie soundtracks, and often enough the instruments are closely mic’d for additional texture and drama - especially with Bernard Herrmann soundtracks.

It’s possible my preference for a closer seating to an orchestra was influenced by listening to soundtracks growing up. Hard to know whether I like sitting close to the symphony because I like like closely might symphonic recordings, or visa versa.

 

[Wesseling Audio Lab]

The rate of absorption in the air of high frequencies over distance!

 

[Floyd Toole]

This is not provocative, it's logical. The further you sit from the music source, the greater the percentage of reverberance in the signal. That tends to swamp the finer characteristics of the instruments and voices.
Years ago, I would sneak into the college theater to listen to the orchestra rehearse. I had to be careful not to annoy the conductor, so I generally sat in the back row. Occasionally, I was allowed to sit in about the tenth row (if I behaved myself ) and the difference was amazing ... especially for violins.

Yes, distance and reverberation can be monstrously important.

Glad you agree. A corollary to this observation is that when large space information is included in stereo and multichannel recordings, it usually dominates the small room reflections that occur earlier and are lower in amplitude. The irony is that when all channels are operating we are less sensitive to resonances in loudspeakers - and very likely some of the timbral subtleties in the program as well. Fortunately, all recordings include components of hard-panned - monophonic - sound, permitting the binaural system to readjust. With spatial aspects of sound reproduction having similar importance to sound quality there are many trade-offs taking place in our musical lives.

 

[Wesseling Audio Lab]

Concert venue sound varies greatly. Recordings vary!

 

[MattHooper]

With respect to having thick damping just behind your head, I have a sofa with soft neck rests. Piling up loads of thick pillows or a lot of dampening gives me a unfomfortable experience, both when talking to people around me and listening to speakers.

I had a similar position on that until fairly recently. I had a custom designed sofa made for my room, the room doing double duty of Home Theatre and my two channel listing.

I had the backrest designed to be just up to shoulder height below the neck, to provide plenty of resting support for long movie watching, but also to keep my head clear of pillows when listening to my two channel system. It worked out great. But more recently have discovered how much I enjoy leaning my head back and reclining more for listening. And I have experimented with different pillows behind my head - usually quite small pillows, and depending on the pillow, I get a different acoustic quality.

I now quite like the presentation with my head, leaning back on a pillow, and as such I have adjusted and aimed my speakers, as well as the position of my sofa, so that it sounds best to me when my head is leaning on a pillow.

 

[Floyd Toole]

The rate of absorption in the air of high frequencies over distance!

That is definitely a factor - the sound spectrum becomes "dull" in the back rows. I long ago gravitated to the "HiFi" seats in the first 10 or so rows. Occasionally front row mezzanine - no "seat dip" loss of upper bass and looking down on the orchestra - it totally depends on the hall. There are trade-offs in live performance listening.

 

[Heinrich]

Let the flames begin

John Wayne comes to the rescue, all horns blow full attack. You do not explain what good, or even „better“ sound quality might be other than to replicate the orchestra at home as if it was live. What‘s the point of reference?

Taking the hill from the other side, an orchestra is, building and habitation included, some technical means for a purpose, a tool. What is left of the goods it should deliver, when it is transposed to another technology, the hifi?

The case shows similarities to photography versus oil painting. Like Picasso did, the limitations of the new media have to be acknowledged and explored for a new—what? Let the artists speak. Stop glorifying that ol‘ past, seeking to save the ashes …

 

[Thomas_A]

I had a similar position on that until fairly recently. I had a custom designed sofa made for my room, the room doing double duty of Home Theatre and my two channel listing.

I had the backrest designed to be just up to shoulder height below the neck, to provide plenty of resting support for long movie watching, but also to keep my head clear of pillows when listening to my two channel system. It worked out great. But more recently have discovered how much I enjoy leaning my head back and reclining more for listening. And I have experimented with different pillows behind my head - usually quite small pillows, and depending on the pillow, I get a different acoustic quality.

I now quite like the presentation with my head, leaning back on a pillow, and as such I have adjusted and aimed my speakers, as well as the position of my sofa, so that it sounds best to me when my head is leaning on a pillow.

Well, some absorption using neck rests ok by me. But having loads of damping just makes the sound strange - like being in a very damped room. I am almost getting nausea, which is not my definition of nice listening environment.

 

[MattHooper]

Well, some absorption using neck rests ok by me. But having loads of damping just makes the sound strange - like being in a very damped room. I am almost getting nausea, which is not my definition of nice listening environment.

I think I get around this… one way being that the pillows I’m talking about our very short and quite narrow rectangles. So when I play some behind my head vertically, they are perhaps the width of my head, but not extending beyond my ears, so they just hold my head off the large back pillow, leaving some space still between my ears and the back pillow.

 

[Heinrich]

That is definitely a factor - the sound spectrum becomes "dull" in the back rows. I long ago gravitated to the "HiFi" seats in the first 10 or so rows. Occasionally front row mezzanine - no "seat dip" loss of upper bass and looking down on the orchestra - it totally depends on the hall. There are trade-offs in live performance listening.

O/k, with your presumably provocative „let the flames begin“ post you didn‘t address the artist‘s perspective. Fair enough, but again a circle of confusion. What is perfectionizing of hifi all about, conversely, what is „good enough“? The reaction of others seem to convey a honest answer. Thanks!
Now me takes the pillow to just rest my head …

 

[Duke]

@Floyd Toole , on page 178 of the third edition of your book, Figure 7.13, in the "Perspective" category of the "Spatial Quality" section of the questionnaire, one of the choices is "You Are There". This "Perspective" category was used for evaluating loudspeakers in stereo, so it may have been used just that once. For better or worse, I must admit that "You Are There" is something I enjoy.

Within the context of two-channel, can you help me understand where "You Are There" falls in relation to a couple of your recent statements?

You [MattHooper] are talking about hearing subtle spatial cues in recordings, and these compete with reflected sounds in the listening room – the old “room within a room” problem. Common experience is that that overall perception is mostly that of the recorded or synthesized space which, almost certainly, is larger than our listening rooms.

Would this "overall perception is mostly that of the recorded or synthesized space" constitute a "You Are There" perspective? My interpretation of the term "the recorded or synthesized sense of space" would include a sense of envelopment in that acoustic space, which I associate with "You Are There". If this is what you have in mind, then I get the impression you're saying that "You Are There" is not particularly elusive.

(To a first approximation, my impression is that stronger early reflections trend towards a "They Are Here" perspective, which was also one of the choices; whereas stronger late reflections trend towards "You Are There".)

Stereo recordings do not capture the original environmental sounds, and two loudspeakers cannot reconstruct the original sound field, thereby delivering the perception of envelopment - of being in a different, large space - which is a key figure of merit for concert halls.

And this statement gives me the impression that the sense of envelopment implied by "You Are There" is quite elusive, and perhaps beyond what conventional (non-crosstalk-cancelling) two-channel playback can hope to deliver, even with a good recording.

If you can help me figure out how the descriptor "You Are There" fits in with these statements, that would be very helpful to me.

 

[MattHooper]

A corollary to this observation is that when large space information is included in stereo and multichannel recordings, it usually dominates the small room reflections that occur earlier and are lower in amplitude. The irony is that when all channels are operating we are less sensitive to resonances in loudspeakers - and very likely some of the timbral subtleties in the program as well.

I wonder if you could comment on an observation I’ve made it seems relevant?

I have a fair amount of flexibility in terms of making the room more live, sounding or dead sounding. And I have done a lot of experimenting with speaker list, new position and altering the ratio of reflections on my room.

To your comments: The more dead I make the room, for instance pulling drapes along sidewalls, the more the recorded acoustics dominate, and the more timbrel nuance, hear in the sound. I mean in a typical orchestral recording, there’s a sense that there has opened up a distinctly carved out acoustic space between and behind the speakers; a separate acoustic occupying its own space, separate from the room that I am in. The “peering through a portal effect” as I think of it.

On the other hand, if I open up the room, including opening it up to the hallway, and allow the walls to be much more reflective, I get a more lively and present sound. Of course I don’t totally lose the recorded acoustic, but it’s still more “they are here in the house.”

However, I find that if I dial the reflective quality of my room, in between those two extremes, “ just right,” then what happens is
I hear the very distinct acoustic character of the recording dominating, but with just enough reflection that it opens up the sound, allowing the recorded acoustic to just blend enough with the room that it feels like I’m occupying the same acoustic space as the recording. So it’s less of a “ peering into a distinctly different acoustic space through a port hole between the speakers” impression and more like my actual room Is part of the same acoustic, but that it opens up to larger or more distinct acoustic spaces beyond the loudspeaker. The wall behind the speakers melting away effect.
(perhaps I’m describing some thing that others might dissociate with dipoles)

For me this gives (to the extent possible in my stereo set up) the sense of being transported to the event -i’m sharing the same acoustics - and sense that my room has been opened up to different acoustic spaces varying between recordings.

Does this make sense?

Of course, given the compromises of reproduced sound in general and stereo in particular, it’s not truly going to sound like the real thing. And so we have to participate with our own imagination. But when I get the balance right, I’m frankly amazed how little imagination it takes sometimes to have the impression with my eyes closed, that I could be for instance, on a balcony looking down on a real orchestra playing.

In the very same room, I have a really good 7.0 surround system (really big centre channel, L/R go deep leaving me no desire for a subwoofer), and I certainly appreciate listening to music in surround as well.
But there still remain aspects of the two channel presentation as I described above that I can often find more believable than my surround system.

 

[Floyd Toole]

@Floyd Toole , on page 178 of the third edition of your book, Figure 7.13, in the "Perspective" category of the "Spatial Quality" section of the questionnaire, one of the choices is "You Are There". This "Perspective" category was used for evaluating loudspeakers in stereo, so it may have been used just that once. For better or worse, I must admit that "You Are There" is something I enjoy.

Within the context of two-channel, can you help me understand where "You Are There" falls in relation to a couple of your recent statements?




Would this "overall perception is mostly that of the recorded or synthesized space" constitute a "You Are There" perspective? My interpretation of the term "the recorded or synthesized sense of space" would include a sense of envelopment in that acoustic space, which I associate with "You Are There". If this is what you have in mind, then I get the impression you're saying that "You Are There" is not particularly elusive.

(To a first approximation, my impression is that stronger early reflections trend towards a "They Are Here" perspective, which was also one of the choices; whereas stronger late reflections trend towards "You Are There".)




And this statement gives me the impression that the sense of envelopment implied by "You Are There" is quite elusive, and perhaps beyond what conventional (non-crosstalk-cancelling) two-channel playback can hope to deliver, even with a good recording.

If you can help me figure out how the descriptor "You Are There" fits in with these statements, that would be very helpful to me.

I think it is obvious that there is a continuum between "they are here" and "you are there" impressions, depending on the relative strengths of early (listening room) and late (recorded real or synthesized large space reflections). Some recordings aim at one target, others at the other - the recording engineer and musicians make that artistic decision. Whatever the artistic goal, limits are imposed by the delivery format. In real life, the powerful and attractive impression of "envelopment" - of being in a large space - is delivered mainly by late reflections (> 80 ms) arriving from about 60 deg +/- away from center - where side wall reflections come from in large rooms. These must be in recordings, and they must be delivered by loudspeakers farther to the side of listeners than the stereo L & R speakers at +/- 30 deg. Serious experiments have been done showing that the conventional 5 channel configuration does a very good job of approximating the envelopment of many more channels. Stereo does poorly. It is not the loudspeaker, or the listening room, or any mysterious unmeasured or unmeasurable factor that is the limitation to reproducing something that sounds "real' - it is stereo itself.

This does not mean that stereo "fails", it means that it is simply not the best format. A vast percentage of these forum discussions comparing "opinions" and personal experiences make it clear that consumers are not content with the way things are, but the industry is not interested in solving the problem because they can sell what they have. Stereo is cheap and easy to record and it has become the cost-effective default product. Sadly, as has been discussed in this forum more than once, it is a pity that the acoustical crosstalk degrades the fidelity of all phantom images, especially that of the featured artist in the center.

I am not a fan of all that Dolby does and has done - e.g., they have deliberately obstructed attempts to improve cinema sound. Atmos is a mixed bag of properties, and it seems that customers are not rushing to equip for it. However, it is interesting that in their current endeavor to sell Atmos music recordings to the public they are attempting to make additional channels at +/- 50 deg standard for Atmos music recordings. Vanishingly small numbers of consumers will have loudspeakers in those locations, so their motivation is puzzling.

The locations, though, are excellent, and I have my own side loudspeakers located around +/- 70 deg, not +/- 110 deg as is normal. Why? Because I have 7 channels and the two rear channels provide the flyover illusions for movies and the relocated front loudspeakers provide more credible envelopment effects for music and movie soundtracks. Personal priorities.

Knowing about acoustics and psychoacoustics has advantages. Most of my stereo music is subtly upmixed, adding just a hint of envelopment. Finding and adjusting a tasteful upmixer is challenging, and some recordings do not respond, so an "off" icon is important. But when I switch back to raw stereo, something pleasant often disappears - the soundstage becomes smaller. Some of the best sounding surround sound is in movies and music videos - these people have been working with multiple channels for decades. In movies the center channel does most of the work, delivering virtually all dialog and on-screen sounds. In music recordings it is often omitted because it is timbrally incompatible with (better than) phantom images on the soundstage. There is no better solution that is both practical and economic, so we make do with what we have. Understanding what we have helps.

 

[Artsfols]

If you were a psychologist you would not trust your ears. The info they provide is only a percentage of what the brain uses to create our perception of the sound.

Trust your gut - or your instinct - but never the ears!

I don't see anything in the design of the Arro that would make them better than any other speaker at locating instruments in the soundfield. It may be they simply have a lift in the upper mid and top. No measurements seem to be available.

Many speaker mysteries are just frequency response variations. Which are also time domain variation

Time domain variations, yes. But what about deviations (delays) in the time domain? These would show also as frequency response variations, as one is directly calculable from the other.

If you were a psychologist you would not trust your ears. The info they provide is only a percentage of what the brain uses to create our perception of the sound.

Trust your gut - or your instinct - but never the ears!

I don't see anything in the design of the Arro that would make them better than any other speaker at locating instruments in the soundfield. It may be they simply have a lift in the upper mid and top. No measurements seem to be available.

Many speaker mysteries are just frequency response variations. Which are also time domain variations...

Good. In these forums I read about people expending great effort and sometimes expense fretting over the locations of the loudspeakers and ignoring where the ears are located. Fortunately humans are very quick to adapt to awkward situations, and life goes on. Ignorance can be bliss.

Off topic - the thought that live unamplified music is the ideal goal is not a bad one. However, what is required to capture and deliver the equivalent of the "live" experience is binaural (dummy head) recordings delivered through calibrated insert headphones, including low-latency head tracking. I have heard it, and one is truly "there". The same sounds one would have heard at the concert are delivered to the eardrums - as near as technically possible.

Stereo recordings do not capture the original environmental sounds, and two loudspeakers cannot reconstruct the original sound field, thereby delivering the perception of envelopment - of being in a different, large space - which is a key figure of merit for concert halls. Five channels can come very close for a single listener, and I have heard large immersive systems that do better, allowing one to walk around the room and not lose the illusion. A fundamental problem is that microphones are located where nobody ever puts their ears - much closer - and they capture only a sample of the total sound radiated by voices and instruments. We have adapted to this distortion, it seems.

ALL stereo recordings are mixed and manipulated in recording and mastering rooms to sound good through two loudspeakers. Reality may or may not be a consideration.

A provocative statement: the farther away one sits in a concert hall, the less one is able to discern timbral subtleties in the musical instruments and voices. A good recording delivered through truly neutral loudspeakers may have some (not all) advantages, and more channels are better than stereo. That said, I have been a season ticket holder at live classical concerts for decades. The spatial impression and envelopment of the real thing cannot be replicated at home. The sound quality? Pretty close, sometimes maybe better. Let the flames begin

Yes of course this makes perfect sense even to a relative audio engineering neophyte like me.
The binaural headphones remove issues of room acoustics, speaker placement, et cetera, which all confuse localization present in a stereo recording. And a stereo, binaural recording in theory should be able to reproduce the full dimensionality (my own personal word) of the live orchestra experience.

I must qualify your statement about sitting as close as possible to an orchestra. The ideal location is about 10 rows back, centre of hall. And the reason is that balance can be off when you sit closer, especially if you're toward one side or another of the hall. The other problem is that in most halls the very front rows are just too low.
We are blessed in our city, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, with a hall with exceptional acoustics. During some lean years (30 years ago now), we sat up in the second balcony, and the sound was surprisingly good, but nothing to match my preferred seats through all the latter years.

And I enjoyed the posts about pillows, curtains and so on. Last night my wife and I listened again to our indie folk playlist (on my blog, www.gesprek.net ) and both of us grabbed the largest throw pillows we have to put behind our heads. The entire experience was rapturous, but then I am more a music lover than an audiophile, so the comparison was not objective.

Finally, over the years I have paid attention to how orchestra's are recorded, and this is a much greater variable, beyond a certain point in equipment quality, in enjoying orchestral recordings. As I have stated, many 1950s recordings ... particularly Abbey Road and Mercury Living Presence are far superior to DG recordings (as an example) of the 1970s.
Orchestral recordings succeed much more with selective placement of half a dozen or so mic's around the concert hall, but at some height above the audience, and away from walls, than in a pop recording where individual instruments are mic'd and mixed. BTW, this is based on observation, not acoustic knowledge.

For those interested in enjoying the orchestral experience at home, for about $200 per year, you can enjoy the Berlin Philharmonic symphony season in Dolby Atmos sound and 4K video, also with an extensive back catalog of orchestral and chamber performances. Almost every top classical music performer today will play with the BPO, so the selection is top notch, and the repertoire, wide ranging. And you get German know how in terms of recording, web service and playback.

 

[Artsfols]

I think it is obvious that there is a continuum between "they are here" and "you are there" impressions, depending on the relative strengths of early (listening room) and late (recorded real or synthesized large space reflections). Some recordings aim at one target, others at the other - the recording engineer and musicians make that artistic decision. Whatever the artistic goal, limits are imposed by the delivery format. In real life, the powerful and attractive impression of "envelopment" - of being in a large space - is delivered mainly by late reflections (> 80 ms) arriving from about 60 deg +/- away from center - where side wall reflections come from in large rooms. These must be in recordings, and they must be delivered by loudspeakers farther to the side of listeners than the stereo L & R speakers at +/- 30 deg. Serious experiments have been done showing that the conventional 5 channel configuration does a very good job of approximating the envelopment of many more channels. Stereo does poorly. It is not the loudspeaker, or the listening room, or any mysterious unmeasured or unmeasurable factor that is the limitation to reproducing something that sounds "real' - it is stereo itself.

This does not mean that stereo "fails", it means that it is simply not the best format. A vast percentage of these forum discussions comparing "opinions" and personal experiences make it clear that consumers are not content with the way things are, but the industry is not interested in solving the problem because they can sell what they have. Stereo is cheap and easy to record and it has become the cost-effective default product. Sadly, as has been discussed in this forum more than once, it is a pity that the acoustical crosstalk degrades the fidelity of all phantom images, especially that of the featured artist in the center.

I am not a fan of all that Dolby does and has done - e.g., they have deliberately obstructed attempts to improve cinema sound. Atmos is a mixed bag of properties, and it seems that customers are not rushing to equip for it. However, it is interesting that in their current endeavor to sell Atmos music recordings to the public they are attempting to make additional channels at +/- 50 deg standard for Atmos music recordings. Vanishingly small numbers of consumers will have loudspeakers in those locations, so their motivation is puzzling.

The locations, though, are excellent, and I have my own side loudspeakers located around +/- 70 deg, not +/- 110 deg as is normal. Why? Because I have 7 channels and the two rear channels provide the flyover illusions for movies and the relocated front loudspeakers provide more credible envelopment effects for music and movie soundtracks. Personal priorities.

Knowing about acoustics and psychoacoustics has advantages. Most of my stereo music is subtly upmixed, adding just a hint of envelopment. Finding and adjusting a tasteful upmixer is challenging, and some recordings do not respond, so an "off" icon is important. But when I switch back to raw stereo, something pleasant often disappears - the soundstage becomes smaller. Some of the best sounding surround sound is in movies and music videos - these people have been working with multiple channels for decades. In movies the center channel does most of the work, delivering virtually all dialog and on-screen sounds. In music recordings it is often omitted because it is timbrally incompatible with (better than) phantom images on the soundstage. There is no better solution that is both practical and economic, so we make do with what we have. Understanding what we have helps.

Interesting that you make adjustment to a stereo recording. I'm not at a level where I can improve them, and best practice for me, for a top notch stereo recording: leave it alone, make sure centre channel (and surrounds if I had them) are off.
I have noticed with my BPO subscription that on my Apple TV box, supposedly the best in audio fidelity for streaming video services, they deliver a very flat and uninteresting format which they call "high definition stereo". Some months later these same recordings re-appear in Dolby Atmos. But on my televisions built in BPO app, they deliver in Dolby Atmos. The Atmos sound is far superior ... I only play it in 3.1, 4 channels. To me, the stereo delivery has a mixdown issue of some kind. I suspect that since they have gone to multi-channel recording, they no longer pay attention to the quality of the stereo mix. The difference is especially stark when the audience applauds; it's almost mono and point sourced in the stereo delivery, whereas it's immersive and delightfully rich in the Atmos mode.
I will add one note on stereo. To me, almost nothing matches a full range, well mixed stereo recording played through my single play CD player (an Arcam, not that brand matters). Of course, this is a separate consideration from creating a you-are-there-listening-to-an -orchestra experience. Someone has taken an effort to make the image sound as good as possible through stereo speakers. Arguably SACD is better as an engineered format with a player that does not squeeze the sound back into CD level DACs. But the pains taken in recording induce much more variability into the result than the storage format.

 

[Floyd Toole]

Arguably SACD is better as an engineered format with a player that does not squeeze the sound back into CD level DACs. But the pains taken in recording induce much more variability into the result than the storage format.

Where this has been tested it was not the expanded SACD bandwidth that "Improved" the sound quality - it was the extra attention paid during recording. CD DACs deliver as much as humans are able to hear if competently used. The multichannel SACD recordings are a separate issue - and well recorded multichannel has a huge advantage.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I am not a fan of all that Dolby does and has done - e.g., they have deliberately obstructed attempts to improve cinema sound

Fully agree!

 

[Artsfols]

Where this has been tested it was not the expanded SACD bandwidth that "Improved" the sound quality - it was the extra attention paid during recording. CD DACs deliver as much as humans are able to hear if competently used. The multichannel SACD recordings are a separate issue - and well recorded multichannel has a huge advantage.

I agree in general. That is, the additional frequency range of an SACD over a CD provides no human hearable difference. Even moreso in my case with hearing topping out at 12kHz at best. (Which actually isn't that much practical diminishment, but I digress).
However, digital sampling and encoding of analog sound presents its own problems. I recently added a Technics mid price turntable to my stereo (that's what we used to call them) purely for nostalgia reasons, and I'm struck with how pleasant and warm analog vinyl sounds. This could actually be due to a deprecation in fidelity, but I'm not sure that bit level errors in common DACs aren't also an issue.
So what I am suggesting here is that my SACDs might sound better through use of a better DAC.
(I did rip 2000 or so pop tracks from my CDs and empirically could only hear a difference in MP3s encoded below 192kHz variable rate, a significant drop from CD level encoding. I made all lossless rips in any case and additional encoding for my portable players at 192 kHz MP3 variable. So if there's no hearable difference going from 192 khz MP3 to CD, a big step in number of bits used, how would I hear a difference stepping from CD to SACD?)
King Crimson's Lizard was a favourite when it came out, so I jumped on the Steve Wilson re-engineered issue on DVD Audio. I use this when I want to blow visitors away ... figuratively, not physically. How much of this is the medium, and how much Steve Wilson? Some of both, but more of the latter I believe.

 

[Floyd Toole]

I'm struck with how pleasant and warm analog vinyl sounds. This could actually be due to a deprecation in fidelity, but I'm not sure that bit level errors in common DACs aren't also an issue.

Back in the days when LPs were the source of programs for listening tests, when I was a research scientist at the National Research Council of Canada and took little for granted, I investigated what could be done to maximize the sound quality from LPs. It was a learning exercise, and I documented most of it in articles written in the Canadian audio magazines - the good old days . . . The research is summarized in the 4th edition of my book (due later this year), and some of original articles will be in the companion website. It is evident to me that a great many people today don't understand how LPs are created and played and the simple fact that it is a very non-linear process, with significant "art" involved in the very compromised "LP mastering" exercise.

Long story short: LPs do not and cannot replicate what is on the master tape: the original art. What is heard is a significantly modified, noisy, distorted version. I made a test recording and compared what went in to what came out - they are different. Distortions of all kinds in whole percentages, noise that was not subtle.

One of the saddest facts of the LP era is something that Phil Ramone told me (Google him - he is a somebody). He said that a senior person supervising the priceless archives of master recordings (analog tape at the time) decided that LPs were the final stage of audio evolution and to save tape he preserved the LP cutting tapes and sent the masters back to be recorded over. The masters of those performances were lost and what was saved was the manipulated version created to drive the cutting head making the original lacquers. These have mono bass (to prevent the stylus from being thrown out of the groove), modified spectrum and dynamic range so that the grooves could be closer together (playing time) , rolled-off high frequencies near the centre of the record (to minimize stylus tracing and tracking distortions when groove velocity drops). It is no surprise that some comparisons between LP and CD versions had puzzling results. When the best LP playback is compared to the master tape from which is is created, it is a different experience - the master wins. Digital copies of the analog master tapes are indistinguishable from them. Today all masters that matter are digital. End of story.

All else is nostalgia, imagination, and folklore. We have moved on, but old things still have fascinations. I like some old cars, but would never argue that they are as good as their modern versions. Nice for a Sunday drive.