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Vinyl is not as bad as I expected.

antcollinet

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It really doesn't matter if your preference is aligned with science (whatever that means) or not - it is still a preference.

Science says little about how we experience enjoyment of music once it is in our heads.
 
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elvisizer

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And I don't tend to care for instruments and voices popping up behind me. Prefer the scene to be happening more from the front.
lol I say this with love- weirdo! :)
personally I love surround on a lot of things- that steven wilson 5.1 mix of phaedra? mmmmmmm that's good listenin'
anyway to each their own with regard to the number of channels
 

Capitol C

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I recently upgraded my mother in law's old record player by replacing the old cartridge with an Ortofon 2M blue and using a Cambridge Audio Duo for phono stage.

And I have to say it's really not as bad as I expected. the noise floor is very dismissable if you're not listening using headphones. distortion is quite okay if you aligned your cartridge correctly. And most importantly, your ears just get used to the flaws and filter them out in a minute or two.

the bass is quite mangled though, and so are transient attacks in general. Kind of hard to imagine someone in the 70s and 80s working hard for a tight bass response.

the only interesting thing that after the upgrade is that I have some decent mains leakage, ~50 Hz at -60 dBFS, not audible at all. Perhaps i should ground the record player to the phono stage?

Overall it was quite an awesome history lesson and experience for the young Gen Z that I am, kudos to everyone who had to deal with this shit for a big chunk of their lives!
What was your mother in law's record player and the rest of her system? The Ortofon blue is a pretty good cartridge, I hope that the rest of her system deserved it!
 

MattHooper

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Wrong. The bit one doesn't "get away with" is holding a personal preference that contradicts the science, but pretending anyone with a view aligned with the science is purely stating a personal preference. With words like, "please forgive those of us who happen to not share your listening preferences."

So, perhaps you are the one who should be careful, and check before misrepresenting what I do or don't "want". And just a tip: drop the sarcasm. It's never a good look.

There is nothing that contradicts The Science about someone stating his preference that arose from his own comparisons of surround sound vs stereo, what he likes and doesn't like. Symphra made specific claims about what he himself likes and dislikes from his experience of surround vs stereo, and about his own goals and how surround meets or does not meet them.

He was not making a scientific case, nor was he "contradicting" the science in stating his preferences while allowing others may have different preferences.

And note the post you jumped on was Symhpra responding to someone else's PREFERENCE claim (not to a scientific claim). Sal called stereo "boring" and Symphra explained why he felt differently. But...no...gotta pound him with the Sciency Stick for that!

You can make the case from studies (as one may make the case about speaker design), that the ODDS are that more people than not will prefer surround sound to stereo in the specific test conditions of the studies you may have in mind. But what you can't do is extrapolate from those studies that you can know any particular individual, either me or symphara, actually didn't legitimately prefer the stereo to surround sound in our own experiences and from what we have heard. Even if YOU and many others may have found preference in your experiences of surround sound. Unless you can produce direct studies showing that, to take some of symphra's preference statement, that symphra himsel in fact DOES like voices and instruments popping up behind him in surround sound, and that in fact symphra DOES actually like the sound of "being in the middle of the orchestra" rather than being in front of it. No you haven't such scientific studies of symphra's personal preference.

I'm curious if you can even find Floyd Toole expressing a preference to have, for instance, being sonically in the center of an orchestra as if one were dangling like an overhead mic, rather than a more realistic recreation of what it's typically like to hear an orchestra.

In fact, here is something Toole has written on multichannel vs stereo:


Skillfully used, the combination of digital discrete
multichannel technology, and a competently set up loudspeak-
er/room combination can provide the basis for thrilling sound
experiences whether the objective is realism or pure abstract
artistry. As gratifying as concert hall performances and two-channel stereo have been, we
now have an expanded spatial and directional palette for musical artists to play with and
within.
Inevitably, there will be debates about good taste and individual preferences, but this
is art and anything goes."


So please notice Toole himself makes allowances for listener preferences and debate. When symphra says he has not found his experiences with surround music to be compelling, and states HIS PREFERENCES for the location of the orchestra and other sounds in the soundfield, you have no grounds to be waving your Staff Of Scientific Purity at him, as if he'd just made claims that contradict the science. Per Toole's comments above, if symphra listened to a surround track and said "I didn't like the voices and instruments popping up behind me" you have no scientific grounds to tell him "No, actually YOU DO like that!"

He's quite right that people can and do have different preferences in regards to stereo and surround sound. He wasn't making some case against surround for everyone else.

If you really want to be a voice for The Science...it's best to have a scientific attitude. You'll notice that good scientists are more careful and humble about what claims they can extract from the research.
 
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Newman

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It really doesn't matter if your preference is aligned with science (whatever that means) or not - it is still a preference.
So you don‘t know what “the science” means? Interesing.
 

antcollinet

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So you don‘t know what “the science” means? Interesing.
Nice straw man. You should stay, you're fun.:rolleyes:

EDIT - PS, deliberate strawmanning is not exactly scientific.
 
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Newman

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How is it a straw man if I actually quote your words, “aligned with science (whatever that means)”? Do you know what “straw man” means (hint: I would have to say you said something you didn’t, or respond to something you didn’t say as if you did, or pretend you said an exaggeration of what you actually did say)? Do you know what “aligned with the science” means?
 
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MattHooper

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How is it s straw man if I actually quote your words, “aligned with science (whatever that means)”? Do you know what “straw man” means? Do you know what “aligned with the science” means?

He was referencing this strange sentence you wrote:

"The bit one doesn't "get away with" is holding a personal preference that contradicts the science, but pretending anyone with a view aligned with the science is purely stating a personal preference."

It was not at all clear what you would mean by that (and it does seem muddled in any case - see my reply to you).
 

antcollinet

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How is it s straw man if I actually quote your words, “aligned with science (whatever that means)”? Do you know what “straw man” means? Do you know what “aligned with the science” means?
You missed a word: "preference". I have literally no idea what you mean when you say your "veiw is aligned with science" when talking about a preference (see I've helped you out there by putting the whole prase in quotes, so you don't make a mistake, and pick parts out of context). Science can measure distortion, frequency response, etc etc. It can (loosely) measure frequency of a particular preference in a given population under specific conditions. How is your "view aligned with science" in any significant way, other than being in the majority of a music presentation popularity contest?
 

Newman

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I have literally no idea what you mean when you say your "veiw is aligned with science" when talking about a preference

It appears that you have no idea that a significant section of audio science is dedicated to understanding what people prefer in sound (I was going to say “in music” but that is only one subset, but the one we are most interested in here). For more information, buy Toole‘s book, edition 1 is the best to start with IMHO.
 

antcollinet

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..... understanding what people prefer in sound ...
What? All people? Some people? A majority of people? Again - how does that mean your view/preference is aligned with science?

Actually never mind. I've lost interest.
 

MattHooper

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It appears that you have no idea that a significant section of audio science is dedicated to understanding what people prefer in sound (I was going to say “in music” but that is only one subset, but the one we are most interested in here). For more information, buy Toole‘s book, edition 1 is the best to start with IMHO.

You keep missing the point, even though it's been put clearly to you several times.

You are browbeating people for stating their preferences in regard to their experience with surround and stereo.

The research can tell us about probabilities in regard to the specific experimental situations, and some level of extrapolation to general probabilities can be made, but it DOESN'T tell you that the INDIVIDUAL preferences stated here are "wrong" or "in error" or "not in line with the science."

You may as well be saying to a patient in the ICU with COVID who was vaccinated that "Sorry, your claim about being vaccinated is not in line with the science. It's anti-scientific because you see the vaccine has 95% protection against hospitalization with COVID!"
Yes, well that doesn't tell you that the individual isn't one of the ones who were not protected. It's just as "in line with the science" that some vaccinated end up in the ICU with covid. Similarly, unless you can show 100 percent confidence levels that EVERYONE will prefer X, and that someone's referenced experience was of the exact type studied, then you can't PRESUME someone's report of preference is "wrong" and "not aligned with the science."

Again..if you really care about science, please notice just how cautious good scientists are about what they can confidently extrapolate from their data, and the caveats that they tend to supply with their claims. it would behoove you to argue more cautiously and carefully, like a good scientist would.
 

Inner Space

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It appears that you have no idea that a significant section of audio science is dedicated to understanding what people prefer in sound (I was going to say “in music” but that is only one subset, but the one we are most interested in here). For more information, buy Toole‘s book, edition 1 is the best to start with IMHO.

Is "understanding what people prefer" science, though? Or is it merely surveying, for commercial insight? No doubt corporate housebuilders conduct surveys to determine attractive colors for showhome walls - is that "science"? If they then correlated neural responses to color, and watched reactions from brain scans, etc, etc, then maybe. But "preference" is so limp and weak it hardly qualifies, I think.

Toole's fundamental weakness is that amid fairly reserved and "scientific" stuff - which he does well enough to pass - he is irrationally angry about what stereo doesn't give him. All those parts are really just rants that apples are not oranges.

I have heard plenty of surround sound (and mixed a fair bit) including in development labs, etc, and it does nothing for me. Mostly I find it to be a deeply uninteresting gimmick. My preference is for 2-channel. Which is - horror of horrors - allowed by the "science". Those with minority reactions are not "unscientific" - they're merely in the minority, which is, of course, an outcome that the "science" not only predicts, but effortlessly accommodates.
 

brimble

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My father in law bought some fancy turntable, for completion's sake since he has very nice audio gear and an LP collection, so we listened to A Love Supreme and Tarkus, yeah it's terrible compared to even Spotify.

I know this is off topic (so sue me), but isn't it interesting how audio reviews often mention specific pieces of music and then I'm all like "Yay! What great music!" (which I am in this case) or "OMG what horrible music", and then I lose focus on the topic of the audio equipment. For serious reviews (not this thread), I would much prefer it if they would *not* mention which music they'd listened to.
 

Leiker535

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You keep missing the point, even though it's been put clearly to you several times.

You are browbeating people for stating their preferences in regard to their experience with surround and stereo.

The research can tell us about probabilities in regard to the specific experimental situations, and some level of extrapolation to general probabilities can be made, but it DOESN'T tell you that the INDIVIDUAL preferences stated here are "wrong" or "in error" or "not in line with the science."

You may as well be saying to a patient in the ICU with COVID who was vaccinated that "Sorry, your claim about being vaccinated is not in line with the science. It's anti-scientific because you see the vaccine has 95% protection against hospitalization with COVID!"
Yes, well that doesn't tell you that the individual isn't one of the ones who were not protected. It's just as "in line with the science" that some vaccinated end up in the ICU with covid. Similarly, unless you can show 100 percent confidence levels that EVERYONE will prefer X, and that someone's referenced experience was of the exact type studied, then you can't PRESUME someone's report of preference is "wrong" and "not aligned with the science."

Again..if you really care about science, please notice just how cautious good scientists are about what they can confidently extrapolate from their data, and the caveats that they tend to supply with their claims. it would behoove you to argue more cautiously and carefully, like a good scientist would.
This problem arises very often in this forum and I find it quite interesting. Overall the discussion is epistemological and not solely about audio, it pertains to the problem of "dogmafication" of scientific research even though said research was never meant to establish absolutes, especially considering research like that of Harmans.

Aside from the proclivity to extrapolate preference/average findings or descriptions as "should bes" (and this extrapolation is one of the most classical debates in philosophy), I think it also comes to being because relying on and defending non-average preferences, such as a target response with no elevated bass or uppermids (looking at you IEF neutral), can be confused with "everything is subjective, listen with your ears" type of argument that is so recurring in hobbies like vinyl . More puzzling still is that these extreme subjectivists themselves will argue in this line to justify tube amps, fancy cables etc.

I really feels like I''m always walking on eggshells while loving vinyl and still frequenting this forum, because I have to justify being "irrational"; but also when I frequent vinyl related forums/chats, because there I have to justify why I'm not eager to use tube amps, tube phonos, thousand dollar rubber mats etc.
 

Newman

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But what you can't do is extrapolate from those studies that you can know any particular individual, either me or symphara, actually didn't legitimately prefer the stereo to surround sound in our own experiences and from what we have heard. Even if YOU and many others may have found preference in your experiences of surround sound. Unless you can produce direct studies showing that, to take some of symphra's preference statement, that symphra himsel in fact DOES like voices and instruments popping up behind him in surround sound, and that in fact symphra DOES actually like the sound of "being in the middle of the orchestra" rather than being in front of it. No you haven't such scientific studies of symphra's personal preference.
And neither does he. And neither do you (about you). Because the science is investigating what people prefer in THE SOUND WAVES. (Small chance that I am wrong and he and you have indeed done such scientific studies on your own preferences, but in general the people wasting everyone’s time with personal anecdotes are referencing their sighted listening, and also, even if they do a controlled self-test, not logging enough data on it to conduct statistical analysis of their own preferences either.)

You are right that, when controlled studies establish preferences for sound waves not biases, there is a range, and I expect some people are at the end of the range that means they do indeed prefer the sound waves the other way. But people anecdotally expressing here where their preferences lie (I don’t do it BTW, and you seem to be assuming that I do) are really talking 99% of the time about their bias, and actually don’t know where they would sit on the topic in a controlled test, but the ODDS (your emphasis) are that they would fall in line with the science. (Cue heated, futile debate from several here about how oneself couldn’t possibly be wrong about one’s own preferences.)
 

Newman

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I really feels like I''m always walking on eggshells while loving vinyl and still frequenting this forum, because I have to justify being "irrational"; but also when I frequent vinyl related forums/chats, because there I have to justify why I'm not eager to use tube amps, tube phonos, thousand dollar rubber mats etc.
You feel like you’re walking on egg shells? Try walking in my shoes. The egg shells you tread on are there after being thrown at me and falling to the ground, lol. Try taking the heat I take and not being able to even make reference to the science on a topic without being mocked for my arrogance in even using the words and having them thrown back at me in quote marks ie “the science (whatever that means)”. If audio science is clear in establishing what sonic traits are important to playback listening pleasure, and clear in the ability of multichannel sound to provide those traits in ways that 2-channel cannot, try being accused of arrogance for even mentioning that.
 

Newman

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What? All people? Some people? A majority of people? Again - how does that mean your view/preference is aligned with science?

Actually never mind. I've lost interest.
Well, buy the book and rekindle your interest. And just for laughs when you read it, try taking a genuine interest and learning attitude. Try and avoid accusing the author, or those recounting his evidence-based conclusions, of “epistimological discussion”, “dogmatification of research”, and especially try to avoid jumping to the assumption that he must be “irrationally angry about stereo”, the latter being a true ROTFL and perhaps even a projection by someone who is irrationally angry about criticisms of stereo. Try to avoid doing all the above-mentioned mental gymnastics purely because the science contradicts your bias-dominated personal experience in one area or another. And finally, try to avoid getting all worked up about me using the S word.
 
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