Fair enough; I did say it was a pedantic itch I was scratching.
But I still view it as an important distinction.
Ok, thanks for pointing that out. Though I think the problem remains with the "IF," because "IF" someone is equating "Maximum Fidelity" with "Good Sound Quality," then we are talking about the very problem I argued about. So even if we take your for-sake-of-argument example, it doesn't really get us around the issue I was raising; it exemplifies it. And as I say, some people do seem to make this equation (that's why you used the example), which I believe to be problematic.
It looks like there was some confusion there (could be in the way I wrote it).
That's what I meant by writing "
assuming the digital signal is of maximal fidelity"
It was meant to ASSUME the digital signal is maximal fidelity. Not question it.
I assumed we were talking about fidelity to the original master, where because we know digital is capable of more fidelity, we can ASSUME-for-sake-of-argument the digital version of a record DOES represent maximal fidelity. I was simply making that explicit in the line of reasoning, because in making the logical case for vinyl being lower fidelity, without STATING the digital to be higher fidelity, you get a non-sequitur.
So, no I wasn't inserting a "second kind of fidelity" in the statement at all. Just building a logical statement careful that one thing entails another.
I hope that clarified things.
(Of course one CAN legitimately talk about whether a specific digital signal we are listening to IS higher fidelity to the master - after all it could have been changed significantly from the original sound by the mastering engineer...but to be cleaner it's best to leave that caveat aside).
Yes we agree. Except...again...I would amend what you wrote this way: So fidelity is not always correlated with good sound - that depends on
subjective evaluation.
Why the change?
Because while obviously "good" is a subjective evaluation, and individual preferences will play a roll in that evaluation, it can be a bit misleading to cast "Good Sound" as if it ONLY related to an individual's preference - as variable and relative as the choice of ice cream or whatever. You may think this is another useless pedantic point...but it isn't because of how these conversations actually tend to play out.
I think there ARE general features that most people would equate to "High Sound Quality."
First among them would be: Sonic Realism. If you took playback system A and B, and played a recording of a human vocal, and "A" had the fidelity level of an flip-phone speaker and "B" replicated the human voice with something like perfect realism - A would impress virtually everyone as being Higher Sound Quality.
(Or take any number of instruments or real world sounds, reproduced with startling realism).
So "fidelity to the sound of the real thing" is one benchmark.
Of course music recordings aren't always about such direct fidelity. But, does this mean we therefore have no possible consensus on what people perceive as "higher" vs "lower" sound quality? Surely not. I'd suggest there are any number of characteristics that will lead to many or most people tending to rate as higher sound quality in music playback: intelligibility, clarity, vividness, richness/fullness, tonal/harmonic complexity, fuller frequency range, higher dynamics, etc. This is separable from mere "preference" because we all know instances where we may "prefer" a certain recording (say a not so great sounding live recording) even while admitting the "sound quality" is inferior to another one.
And of course this can be and has been studied: Much of the work cited and produced by Toole et al was studying people's
perception of Sound Quality. That's what, for instance, the blind speaker tests were rating - not "fidelity" since nobody had any idea what technical fidelity the source or speaker had to some original signal, but rather simply "
rate the perceived quality of the sound." And it wasn't just a crap-shoot. There was impressive consensus!
So this is why I don't like to automatically equate "Sound Quality assessment" to "That's JUST a statement of YOUR preference." Which is often used to subtly (or not so subtly) dismiss someone speaking about vinyl sound quality "That's JUST your preference...good for you." No, there are some pretty well-ascribed benchmarks of sound quality we can talk about!
When I play, for instance, Talk Talk's Color Of Spring vinyl record, it's bloody amazing sound quality in most of the parameters people would rate "Good Sound Quality." It's huge and spacious sounding, super clear, sonically rich, dynamic etc. There isn't a single person I've played the record for who hasn't' been gobsmacked by the sound (and often since the turntable is in another room, and have the sound down for the needle drop, they don't always know if it's a record or CD or whatever). So it has qualities that allow me to predict that most people will assess the sound as being High Quality...it's not JUST about my personal preference.*
(*Which doesn't mean some people won't *prefer* the digital version if they hear both. I would completely understand *preference* going either way, but I've yet to see anyone rate the vinyl as "poor sound quality.").