Twitter thread on vinyl by Charles Murray

[ahofer]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1223226566928490498

Go ahead and muck in! Lots of bad assertions. About CDs, hi-res, etc.

 

[anmpr1]

I like Charles, usually. Anyone 'the establishment' hates so much just for thinking thoughts must be doing something correct. Or at least interesting. And they really hate Charles. I mean really hate him.

But why would anyone want to conduct a DBT of a record versus a digitized recording of the record? I don't know the point of that, really.

 

[Martin]

But why would anyone want to conduct a DBT of a record versus a digitized recording of the record?

I can think of two reasons:
1. A lot of subjectivists claim that vinyl sounds superior to CD.
2. A lot of objectivists claim that CD sounds superior to vinyl.

Martin

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

well, I think it would be a way to display the silliness of the notion that there is some special magic about vinyl/analog that simply can't be transmitted by digital. If you can digitally encode the output from vinyl such that the recording is indistinguishable from the original...that would seem to suggest that any vinyl magic that may exist can certainly be achieved digitally also

 

[Daverz]

I like Charles, usually. Anyone 'the establishment' hates so much just for thinking thoughts must be doing something correct. Or at least interesting. And they really hate Charles. I mean really hate him.

But why would anyone want to conduct a DBT of a record versus a digitized recording of the record? I don't know the point of that, really.

You like a white supremacist because you think the "establishment" (whatever that means) hates him? (The "establishment" does not hate Charles Murray. His books get published by major publishers and reviewed in the New York Times. He gets a lot of media play for someone who has never had anything of value to say.)

I hope this isn't a stalking horse for "race realists" to invade the forum.

 

[Soniclife]

It's been done, try and guess the result. With luck @SIY will remember the link to the study, he has posted it before, that I do remember.

 

[NTK]

It is this post.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...nderstand-the-appeal.6430/page-23#post-170710

Below is a snip of the synopsis of Michael Uwins' study. On the usability test, 5 test subjects said they preferred vinyl (DVS - for the "digital vinyl system" that was used in the test). But none of them scored them higher in the double blind listening test. Actually, in the listening test, no test subject score vinyl higher than CD.

 

[JBH129]

You like a white supremacist because you think the "establishment" (whatever that means) hates him? (The "establishment" does not hate Charles Murray. His books get published by major publishers and reviewed in the New York Times. He gets a lot of media play for someone who has never had anything of value to say.)

I hope this isn't a stalking horse for "race realists" to invade the forum.

I'm condused. Does this mean that you do like vinyl or that you dont like vinyl?

 

[tmtomh]

I'm condused. Does this mean that you do like vinyl or that you dont like vinyl?

Why not pose this question to the person who first raised Murray's political reputation in the thread instead of posing it in response to @Daverz ? Daverz didn't start this line of discussion.

 

[MattHooper]

Here we go again..(or here I go again.....)

While I think especially for vinyl enthusiasts there could be some surprising results of another DBT vinyl against CDs, there seem to be a bunch of issues to get around. The obvious one is the higher noise floor of much vinyl which would cue someone which was vinyl. Since the test is a test for preference, not simply for audible differences, that may not matter (and may not have in the DBT cited already). Though, still, other DBTs could find this fact contaminated the test where the person who thinks vinyl sounds better, knowing when he's hearing the vinyl version, selects it as better. Maybe they have to get people more neutral in their beliefs on the subject? I dunno.

But other issues is nailing down what you are actually testing, in terms of the sonic difference between vinyl and digital.

Do you want to test if the vinyl-making process changes the sound in a way people prefer? I guess then you'd stick to drawing the digital and the vinyl from the same original digital master. Then see if whatever the vinyl-making process added was detectable and preferred or not. But then it would also seem to depend somewhat on the particular person doing the mastering, who may by habit tweak the process for vinyl (as it must be tweaked) in a way slightly different than another mastering engineer.

Do you want to test if "keeping everything analog" sounds better, as many vinyl enthusiasts seem to think? Then you ensure at least the record is starting with analog master.

Do you want to test new vinyl pressings vs old?

The thing is no matter how you set up individual DBT tests, the best you can get to support Murray's inference that buying records is divorced from sound quality, is that "ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL" a digital source will be preferred in DBTs over a vinyl copy.

But we can't draw from that "therefore digital sounds better than vinyl, so anyone who refers to any records sounding better is deluded." Because of course all things are rarely equal, due to differences in source quality, mastering etc. Some records sound better than a digital version you may have because they were better mastered, or came from a better master quality, or may have better dynamic range (loudness wars), or depart in some way that can reasonably be judged "better" than the digital counterpart.

Personally I'm not in the "vinyl sounds better" camp as I can point to all sorts of examples of digital source superiority vs many of my vinyl records. But some records stomp the digital versions to my ears. I have for instance a bunch of "library music" records produced and recorded at the peak of analog that often sound head-spinningly great. Some of those records were digitized and are now showing up for streaming (Tidal). I thought "great, I won't necessarily have to track down the vinyl for every one of those hard to find LPs I want." But some of the albums I've tested available on Tidal, sounded really disapointing compared to the sound quality I've been used to. Same with a few CD compellations I own that have tracks I regularly hear on the original LP version. They sound thin and fairly lifeless, like "I could have sworn this track sounded fantastic!" I put on the LP version and boom, there's that big, bold, rich dynamic sound. Whoever did the digital transfer/master just did a poor job.

So, yeah, even if in artificial conditions carefully controlling the rest of the variables vinyl will tend to lose out to digital when testing preference, in the real world there are many variables involved which can lead to LPs "sounding better" that go beyond mere vinyl-bias.

And while Murray can be in principle correct that in DBTs many would select the digital sound, his inference that the vinyl revival is only about "fashion" is facile. We've gone through the many completely reasonable reasons many can value the whole vinyl experience beyond "just wanting to be one of the gang or wanting to be fashionable." (Cripes, if I wanted to be fashionable, I wouldn't have a big hi-fi system - I'd have a discrete smart speaker like everyone else is gravitating toward...or just listen on earbuds/earphones).

I switch between digital and vinyl in my system and whatever defects are part of vinyl I rarely feel like I'm no longer experiencing wonderful sound on the system, except that I find the whole record owning/playing experience enhances my enjoyment.

 

[Thomas savage]

You like a white supremacist because you think the "establishment" (whatever that means) hates him? (The "establishment" does not hate Charles Murray. His books get published by major publishers and reviewed in the New York Times. He gets a lot of media play for someone who has never had anything of value to say.)

I hope this isn't a stalking horse for "race realists" to invade the forum.

This is not the place for this kind of thing.

There's no politics here thank you

 

[ahofer]

I’m just happy to see these topics outside of our closed loop of audio fanatics.

 

[MattHooper]

I’m just happy to see these topics outside of our closed loop of audio fanatics.

Speaking off topic: your tag-line suggests you have a certain perspective on Free Will. Maybe a topic someday for the "Fun Topics" forum!

On topic: I'm about to freely choose to play some vinyl

 

[jhaider]

This is not the place for this kind of thing.

In fairness, quoting a known merchant of hate as if he were a normal person is itself a highly provocative political statement.

Here's what the Southern Poverty Law Center has to say about this particular monster.

Given his intellectual defects, I'm not surprised Murray can't hear.

 

[anmpr1]

As long as the digital signal captured all turntable artifacts (especially LF sonic aberrations which could be present) I don't see why the digital copy wouldn't be essentially the same as the direct feed. The test should be done in real time if possible. Phono cartridge FR can change with temperature fluctuations, and that could cause problems if you attempt an A/B on different days. The digital signal would remain as it was when it was recorded but the phono cartridge might sound different due to FR variation.

 

[jsrtheta]

I like Charles, usually. Anyone 'the establishment' hates so much just for thinking thoughts must be doing something correct. Or at least interesting. And they really hate Charles. I mean really hate him.

But why would anyone want to conduct a DBT of a record versus a digitized recording of the record? I don't know the point of that, really.

There are a lot of very good reasons to hate him.

And I don't know what "establishment" you're talking about.

 

[Severian]

Pretty gross trolling attempt to post an anodyne opinion about audio from Charles Murray while making a snide comment about those that object to discredited race science. Delete this thread IMO.

 

[tmtomh]

Pretty gross trolling attempt to post an anodyne opinion about audio from Charles Murray while making a snide comment about those that object to discredited race science. Delete this thread IMO.

Exactly!

 

[JIW]

In fairness, quoting a known merchant of hate as if he were a normal person is itself a highly provocative political statement.

Here's what the Southern Poverty Law Center has to say about this particular monster.

Given his intellectual defects, I'm not surprised Murray can't hear.

Your assertions (including the ones you shared) of Murray's character are at least misguided.

Here is what Murray himself makes of the SPLC piece. It is the second result of my preferred search engine (duckduckgo) but also google for 'murray splc'. Did any of you read it (or indeed any of Murray's work)?

Let me quote the beginning and leave the rest to the interested reader.

For years, the protesters I have encountered at colleges have gotten their information about why I am a terrible person from the Charles Murray page at the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). For all of those years, I have ignored that material. But in the aftermath of the Middlebury affair and the attendant publicity citing the SPLC’s allegations that I am a white nationalist, white supremacist, racist, and sexist, people who wonder whether these allegations have any basis need to know what I have to say about them.

What follows is an edited and expanded version of the SPLC page that I can live with. My self-imposed ground rules are that I can’t delete accurate quotes from my work that I wish I had worded more felicitously, but I am permitted to extend quotes with material that immediately adjoins the quoted text, to correct factual mistakes, and to make suggestions to the author, as copy editors routinely do.

The copy-edited version contains all of the original text of the SPLC page about me. Replacement text and additional text are shown in green. My remarks as copy editor are in green italics. Additional quotes from my work are in red. “AU” is the standard copy-editing abbreviation for “author.” As copy editor, I refer to my work in the third person. Here we go:

Further, Murray's apparently most controversial book 'The Bell Curve' was written together with Richard Herrnstein who is the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants and Murray's first marriage with a Thai woman resulted in two half-asian, half-caucasian children. Not the kind of deeds prescribed by the norms of white supremacy - the second in fact most definitely proscribed.

Further still about the SPLC as an authority, they settled a defamation lawsuit with Maajid Nawaz for $3.4m.


Since this forum seems to be founded and grounded in the spirit of the enlightenment, posting such a damning but also incorrect assertion of character without easily performable checks of accuracy is in itself quite disappointing but also and equally unbecoming an attempt at poisoning the well.

Lastly, I was not and am still not keen on participating in discussing the particulars of Murray's character or work but such lazy character assassinations (not only of Murray but also those somewhat supportive of him) have no place anywhere and I think @Thomas savage was much to gracious.

As said above, I have no interest in discussing the particulars of Murray's character or work (apart from maybe the bit linked by OP). If this thread continues to devolve into being about Murray in general rather than the particular bit posted by OP, I think it should be closed.

 

[Thomas savage]

Thread closed.