Vinyl will always sound *different* than digital, right?

[j_j]

Oh, come on now. You know you already bought all three of them, so it's pretty much the same for the rest of us.

Actually, what's all three of what? I understand you're making a joke, but my vinyl playback system is 35 years old, and works fine.

 

[MattHooper]

Matt, you need to stop going in circles like this.

If we are going to continue this discussion, then it has to have a baseline degree of rationality and sanity so that it does not become a waste of time.

I don't know why what I wrote rated this ^^^^

1. You first responded to me by saying, "There's a slippage there which assumes an inference from "maximum fidelity" to "better/higher sound quality." But there is no such necessary link."

Your "pedantic correction" was that fidelity and good sound cannot simply be equated. Putting aside the rather important detail that I did NOT actually make such an assumption or inference,

Again, you posited an example IN WHICH one takes "High Fidelity" to be synonymous with "Good Sound from an audio playback system."
I was addressing the implications of anyone doing that. I already clarified that I wasn't attacking your viewpoint. But the example you gave is worth addressing so I don't see the problem here.

Once again, I did not cast good sound as purely subjective. And an important bit of evidence to prove that I did not do so comes from... you: your first "pedantic correction" chided me precisely because in your view I did not cast good sound as subjective ENOUGH ("this one part scratched my pedantic itch, as I see this conflation [between fidelity and good sound] happening pretty often"). Rather, you claimed I associated good sound too tightly with maximum fidelity.

I clarified my argument was still addressing your example, whatever you personally believe.

The fact that I did no such thing is irrelevant to the point I am making here. The point I am making here is that no matter what formulation anyone gives, you will manifest an irresistible compulsion to "correct" it, even if that requires misrepresenting it so you can correct the misrepresented version. This is the first time you and I have tangled on this particular issue, but if you want to know why several other ASR members have gotten frustrated with you or a little spiky towards you in past exchanges in several threads here, I can guarantee you that this kind of rhetorical move is the reason.

Ok. I'm pretty used to philosophical discussions/debates elsewhere, in which conceptual clarity even about small details is seen as important. I can see why not everyone is in to this style of discussion. But I find ignoring these things actually muddies the waters. I mean, everything is easier and simpler if you ignore niggling details.

As I've said, I'm not JUST being picky for pickiness sake: the reason I'm leaping on them is because I see the ambiguities/conceptual slippage/assumptions etc as underlying larger disagreements.

3. The bulk of your last comment to me, quoted in full above, is that people's perceptions of good sound have a significant degree of scientifically-backed consensus behind them, and that vinyl is capable of sounding good in those ways.

To that I say, absolutely, makes sense, agree - and I never claimed or implied otherwise.

That's fine, but your statement had left a certain implication, or was at least ambiguous: So fidelity is not always correlated with good sound - that depends on one's preferences. That directly implied the correlation of "Good Sound Quality" with ""one's preferences."

Since "Good Sound Quality" is separable from "an individual's preference" - I think this was worth clarifying.

As I pointed out, this is often ignored when people want to sort of dismiss the observations about equipment that may not be strictly, fully "accurate." First there ARE people who equate "High Sound Quality" with "High Fidelity." That is why you used it as an example in the first place! And it was worth disambiguating those two things. And then if someone like me lauds a piece of equipment (or source) that is not strictly "High Fidelity" often the response is "Look, nobody is disputing taste. It's fine you have a PREFERENCE for Lower Fidelity/Lower Sound Quality." But that sort of condescension (even if not meant so) derives from the very conflation I've been talking about - conflating High Fidelity with Higher Sound Quality, and "preference" as a proxy for saying "you like lower sound quality."

As someone who is often confronted with this type of thing, I will continue to point it out, and clarify as assumptions or ambiguities arise. Sorry

But again, I have disputed none of that, and I have not dismissed the experiences of vinyl lovers, and I have pointedly not said that people like vinyl despite its bad sound. I never said or implied that vinyl sounded bad. The only critical or "negative" thing I have said about vinyl is that it has lower fidelity than digital, which is objectively true and which you have acknowledge. Therefore, when vinyl sounds audibly different than digital (assuming the same source and mastering), it must sound different because of that lower fidelity - that's not an opinion; it's simply the logical conclusion of facts upon which we agree. That lower fidelity does NOT have to sound worse of course - it can sound better to folks, or it can sound different and not necessarily better or worse. Nothing you have written disproves or effectively argues against those basic points, and conversely I have affirmed those basic points, most of them repeatedly.

Correct. Since you see I'm not arguing against that, it's not really the point. See above.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what else there is to say. If you have a disagreement with a point I've actually made or a point of view I actually hold, I'm all ears. But if, instead, you have a disagreement with a viewpoint that you want to saddle me with based on an inaccurate and implausible interpretation of what I wrote, kindly take a seat.

I had hoped it was clear by now, but again: I'm not critiquing your position.

Or at least I'm not presuming you necessarily hold the positions I've been critiquing. I've only been trying to clarify subjects that arose when I felt you wrote something ambiguous or which could be misleading simply in how you wrote them (whatever it is you personally believe). Because those ambiguities, when not clarified, play out with real effects in people's attitudes and forum discussions.

If you agree with the position I've been articulating, then we are on the same page. As far as I can tell, we agree. I'm just trying to state my position as clearly as I could.

 

[j_j]

"Now the problem is you can't make a perfect digital copy" at about 29:20 may cause some to have their head's explode because this is contrary to a fundamental concept they have accepted as being true about digital. I think because it just makes logical sense and when you learn the theory the front end of recording, mixing and especially mastering isn't part of the discussion. Ones and zeros, bit for bit, copy, etc., is all great in theory, but in reality it has to go through conversion or processing, and even mechanical.

Let's make this clear. If you take the bits recorded from the source, and send them to playback, yes, you can make a perfect, absolutely accurate copy of what was captured.

When you PROCESS such a signal, even by gain changing, then, no, you can not make a perfect copy, because ultimately you must requantize, HOWEVER it is not very hard to use proper word lengths in processing such that the loss is a half a bit from 24 bit depth.

And, of course, if you're smart (and issues regarding some popular software will not be named by name), you send that higher-bit-depth signal all the way from the first operation done on it, to the very, very final end, and THEN you do the one final requantization, which will cause a half-bit loss at the final level of quantization.

A lot, and I mean a LOT of digital processing does not do this right, and does things like reducing a process's output back down to some shorter integer representation, and does so over and over and over and over. This was, is, and will remain to be the WRONG WAY TO DO IT. There is no question here, the mathematics is 100.00% utterly, completely, and without any possible doubt crystal clear. The rule is "never requantize within 24 bits of your peak level EVER until you must do it for delivery. Never. Ever. Double precision float, in modern computers, is entirely capable of running at absurd speeds, and you should just do that.

BUT in things that contain nonlinearities, there is a much worse problem. When you have a nonlinearity, first, you ***MUST*** understand the bandwidth of things like control signals in compressors, and in other kinds of processing, you MUST know, absolutely KNOW, what the polynomial order of the nonlinearity is. In something with both a nonlinearity AND modulation effects (i.e. compressor-limiter) YOU HAD BETTER KNOW BOTH.

And you must, no, this is not an option, oversample the INPUT to the distortion such that the sum of the control bandwidth and the original bandwidth does not exceed fs/2. If it does, you'll create aliasing.

You must ALSO oversample such that the order of the nonlinearity, call it 'm' follows this rule m < 2n-1, where 'n' is the oversampling rate.

Otherwise, again,this will create aliasing, even worse, generally anharmonic aliasing that sounds like <redacted to as to not annoy moderators>.

Much experience in testing such processors shows that not too many of them pay enough time to this issue. Presently, on facebook, there is a lively thread by Bob Katz on this issue, in which some plots make "issues" abundantly (I'm being polite here) clear. Those of you on facebook should check it out.

 

[j_j]

Good luck getting 90+db out of any musical recording, out of vinyl or any other medium.

Um, the question is not "can you" but rather 'do you want to'. I can generate such a signal trivially in matlab, a signal that even SOUNDS GOOD, that goes from peak to 10dB below dither level.

 

[j_j]

That's fine, but your statement had left a certain implication, or was at least ambiguous: So fidelity is not always correlated with good sound - that depends on one's preferences. That directly implied the correlation of "Good Sound Quality" with ""one's preferences."

Let's take this a bit farther. Can you even DEFINE "good fidelity"? In light of the point I made earlier in this thread that stereo itself is an illusion, I think you need to consider the issue of "what is Fidelity?"

 

[MattHooper]

Whoops, one more thing:

Now, do those objective qualities of good sound have a connection - not a 100% connection or an exclusive connection, but an important and obvious connection nonetheless - to fidelity of sound reproduction? Of course they do: clarity, soundstage precision, dynamics, intelligibility - high fidelity reproduction is essential to all of them. In fact, for some of them (clarity and full frequency response in particular) high fidelity is synonymous - they are part of the definition of high fidelity.

Which "definition" of "High Fidelity" is that? And it's ambigous if you are talking about "High Fidelity" in terms of the aims of audio gear, or in terms of artists work, sound quality, or all of them.

Because the one people tend to use around here with regard to the goal of audio gear doesn't seem to match what you just described (or, not clearly).

When asked "Fidelity/Accuracy to what?" a common response here is this is a reference to reproducing the recorded SIGNAL with as much fidelity as possible.
Why? Because we can't have access to the event in front of the mics and/or there is plenty of manipulation such that fidelity to "the original sound in front of the mics" is not even the point of recordings. And due to the circle of confusion we can't ever know for sure we are reproducing "exactly the sound of the signal played back in the particular mixing studio." Therefore, to get around these problems, the idea is to say "The artist/engineer put down a recorded signal, that's all we really have is that signal, so we can endevor to at least reproduce the signal on the recording with High Fidelity."

That's a pretty common refrain around here, right?

But what you just wrote doesn't comport with this notion of High Fidelity. You've now said "clarity and full frequency response" is "synonymous" with High Fidelity, even part of the definition of High Fidelity.

Well...if such sonic characteristics are DEFINED in to the notion of High Fidelity, how would THAT "definition" work in regards to music reproduction? To take any number of examples, artists like Boards Of Canada deliberately degrade the sound samples (by making multiple analog tape copies until they wear out). What they are laying down is deliberately NOT "clear" and NOT "full frequency response.

So now, if you take the more typical notion around here of High Fidelity, by accurately reproducing that musical signal you will hear a lack of clarity and narrow frequency response. But your stated definition departs from this; it requires among other things "clarity and full frequency response."
Whereas the more common understanding of High Fidelity Reproduction here makes NO CLAIMS as to the sonic characteristics of the signal -frequency, clarity, frequency range etc - that is up to whatever the artist put in the recording.

So do you reject the common usage of High Fidelity on this forum?

If not, I think it's worth clarifying what you mean in how you stated that definition.

 

[MattHooper]

Let's take this a bit farther. Can you even DEFINE "good fidelity"? In light of the point I made earlier in this thread that stereo itself is an illusion, I think you need to consider the issue of "what is Fidelity?"

Actually I meant to highlight and agree with exactly what you said earlier about our keeping in mind stereo is itself an illusion. Exactly! It's an illusion. Which is why "accuracy" can be a bit of a rabbit hole. I have no qualms about massaging the illusion somewhat to my taste.

I agree defining 'good fidelity' - in a way that would tie up all the messiness involved in this hobby - is problematic, which has been my point here many times. Here's my account, I wonder if you'll agree or disagree:

Sound reproduction in it's early years started off (often) with the goal of "fidelity to the sound of the real thing." That made sense: you discover you can record and reproduce the sound of real things - voices, violins. And since you are trying to do just that, naturally your first thought is to "try to reproduce the sounds we are hearing - voices etc - with as much fidelity to that real sound as possible." That's why so much of the early bragging, and then later advertising, with regard to "high fidelity equipment" had to do with claims "sounds more like the real thing" "puts you at the concert" etc.

While fully accurate reproduction of real sounds may not have been achievable, this at least had the benefits of having a goal - comparing the reproduced sound with the real thing in front of the microphone, seeing if one is getting further or closer from that reference. Plus it had the 'benefit' where the "fidelity" of the reproduction was pretty tightly matched to "sound quality." That is, not simply a set of measurements, but it related to the subjective: the perceived quality of the sound. If it SOUNDED more like the real thing, this was equivalent to "Higher Sound Quality."

But once the studio started to be used more as a tool itself to manipulate sound to deliberately depart from natural sound, then this goal for audio equipment of "reproducing the sound of the real thing in front of the microphone" no longer made so much sense. Now it made sense that we'd say "Ok, what we want to do is reproduce whatever artistic choices were laid down in the recording. So really, we restrict our goal to reproducing the recorded signal with High Fidelity."

This is as pragmatic a new version of "High Fidelity" as one could appeal to under the circumstances. So...makes sense.

However, this doesn't leave things all neat and tidy. Now we have uncoupled "High Fidelity Reproduction" from the previous notion of "sound quality." Now High Fidelity will result in "whatever it happens to sound like...if the artist deliberately put down an indecipherable distorted signal for her vocal...hearing that reproduced on an accurate sound system is "High Fidelity" as much as the startlingly natural sounding vocal."

As practical as this goal is, it doesn't get us out of the rabbit hole, because we can still ask "but why do we care about reproducing this signal with High Fidelity in the first place?" If the deeper goal is to "enjoy listening to music" then in fact it would seem anything we do to the signal that increases that enjoyment makes sense. But then, we may depart from fidelity - so why fidelity to the signal again? Or if it has to do with wanting to hear exactly what the artist intended - supposedly laid down in that signal. But that too is a rabbit hole: circle of confusion and all that.

But another consequence is that with "Fidelity to the signal" we have to be clear that we no longer mean by this "Sound Quality" per se - be that a sense of sonic realism or natural sound, or be that notions of what most people will tend to associate with "High Sound Quality" (e.g. clarity, articulation, richness of timbre, dynamics, often wide frequency response, etc).

So we can define High Fidelity in a pretty precise technical way, but there is still a certain arbitrariness in doing so, which doesn't necessarily solve the messy issues regarding "sound quality/underlying goal of audio systems" and such.

Generally speaking, when people hear the term High Fidelity Sound System they will tend to equate that to High Sound Quality. That makes some sense, since a High Fidelity Sound System is CAPABLE, fed the right signal, of producing what people will perceive as High Sound Quality. But there are many instances in which it's worth noting High Fidelity and Sound Quality are not one and the same. And while many audiophiles may state their goal as having a High Fidelity System, I don't think it's controversial to say the underlying motivation tends to be seeking at least the possibility of High Sound Quality. And if THAT is indeed the underlying motivation, then we can also talk about how, as you have pointed out, deviations from accuracy can sometimes actually enhance perceived sound quality. It's just that sometimes people on a site like this will ask "If you are an audiophile, why are you even here if you aren't pursuing High Fidelity/Accuracy?"
Well, it's because, I submit, what generally binds audiophiles together is an enthusiasm for High Quality Sound. And sometimes departures from accuracy can be included in that Big Tent.

IMO.

 

[tmtomh]

Again, you posited an example IN WHICH one takes "High Fidelity" to be synonymous with "Good Sound from an audio playback system."
I was addressing the implications of anyone doing that. I already clarified that I wasn't attacking your viewpoint. But the example you gave is worth addressing so I don't see the problem here.

Sorry, but no.

Let's try again. First let's get one thing out of the way: I do not - and did not - think you were attacking my viewpoint. That's not the issue.

Now, my point was that vinyl sounds different than digital. There are different standards people can - and do - use to gauge sound quality. If - IF - you use fidelity to the source as the standard, then by definition digital is capable of better sound than vinyl. Of course one does not have to use fidelity as the standard for good sound. But it is a standard, and a sensible one at that.

So the first issue is that using fidelity to the source as a standard for sound quality - NOT the sound quality of the recording, but rather the sound quality of the audio gear reproducing that recording - is not a "conflation" of fidelity with sound quality as you claim. To call it a conflation is to say that it is an improper association, mixing one thing up with another. But it is not in any way improper. Quite the contrary. It is in fact quite logical, and if you want to get the most you can out of whatever recording it is that you're playing back, high fidelity is the most logical place to start. It is certainly not the ONLY logical way to think about sound quality. The fact that it is sensible - which it most certainly is - does not automatically make it exclusionary or narrow-minded. If you want to argue that using fidelity as a standard is "dismissive" of ways that some people listen to music, then we have to also say that using "simulating a real performance in the room" is also a standard that is dismissive of ways that some people listen to music. It's a criticism that can be leveled at any approach to good sound, and because it can be leveled at any approach, it's a meaningless criticism.

So one is free not to use fidelity as one's standard for good sound. And in that case, digital might produce better sound, or it might not - it depends on how digital and vinyl versions of various recordings sound to you, and how well the sound of each medium/format fulfills your expectations for good sound based on your standard.

Here we come to the second issue: in light of what I just wrote above, you might think, "aha - that's what I was saying: as soon as you move away from fidelity as the standard, you assume that it becomes a subjective free-for-all based on whatever sounds good to each individual."

But no, that was YOUR assumption about what I was saying. In fact, I'm perfectly happy to acknowledge and embrace the fact that, as you noted in your earlier comment, there is research on people's listening preferences (what they consider good sound), and that research suggests that there is a good deal of consensus on the subject. So there does appear to be some objective characteristics of "good sound." Therefore, one doesn't necessarily need "fidelity" at all in order to have an objective standard, or at least something approaching an objective standard.

Assuming that, we then come to what those consensus characteristics of good sound are, based on the research. My understanding of the research is that listeners tend to prefer neutral sound - flat frequency response (or the gently downward sloping but otherwise linear, even response that people apparently perceive as flat, and which Amir uses as a reference in his speaker reviews). If memory serves there is also a majority - though not necessarily as large of a majority - who prefer wider dispersion aka a larger perceived soundstage. My understanding from many threads here is that dispersion characteristics are at least in part considered a matter of taste - there is no consensus as to whether narrower or wider dispersion (within reason, anyway) equals better or worse sound quality. And we can use common sense combined with the research to safely say that people also value clarity, which generally comes from flat frequency response (or proper frequency balance) and from minimizing distortion and noise.

IMHO, this is where we come to the point where your argument becomes rather pointless. Because with the partial exception of dispersion characteristics - and again, to my knowledge there is no accepted dispersion standard that is the "right" one for good sound - all of these characteristics have a strong correlation with high fidelity sound reproduction. The correlation/association might not be 100% perfect - but it doesn't have to be in order for fidelity to be a reasonable standard for gauging good sound.

Which brings us back to where we started. If you feel that vinyl playback tends to produce sound that is clearer, more impactful, more dynamic, and more immersive than digital, then vinyl does indeed sound better to you. But I don't feel that vinyl playback tends to produce that kind of sound compared with digital. So even if clarity, dynamics, and so on are sonic characteristics that have a lot of research behind them to suggest that they are objective characteristics of good sound, there is still the problem that there is no consensus on how well digital vs vinyl provides those characteristics: many prefer digital, many prefer vinyl, and many don't have a strong or consistent or universal preference.

Ok. I'm pretty used to philosophical discussions/debates elsewhere, in which conceptual clarity even about small details is seen as important. I can see why not everyone is in to this style of discussion. But I find ignoring these things actually muddies the waters. I mean, everything is easier and simpler if you ignore niggling details.

I'm quite comfortable with philosophical discussion; I'm in academia and the majority of my career as both a student and a faculty member has been spent immersed in close reading and in analysis that emphasizes conceptual clarity and details of language. For the third time, my objection is not to your pedantism or concern with niggling details. My objection is that you are not actually being pedantic, because you're not actually disagreeing with or correcting what I say. Instead, you're disagreeing with and correcting inaccurate and sometimes implausible inferences about what you think I am implying - like for example the mere mention of the obvious fact that many folks use fidelity as a standard for sound quality becomes an "example of a common conflation." No. Just no.

As I've said, I'm not JUST being picky for pickiness sake: the reason I'm leaping on them is because I see the ambiguities/conceptual slippage/assumptions etc as underlying larger disagreements.

I agree. We just disagree on who is being conceptually sloppy and who is not.

... your statement had left a certain implication, or was at least ambiguous: So fidelity is not always correlated with good sound - that depends on one's preferences. That directly implied the correlation of "Good Sound Quality" with ""one's preferences."

Since "Good Sound Quality" is separable from "an individual's preference" - I think this was worth clarifying.

As I pointed out, this is often ignored when people want to sort of dismiss the observations about equipment that may not be strictly, fully "accurate."

There you go again. You're not simply arguing that sound quality is not (purely) subjective - you want to go further and argue that objectively true elements of sound quality may be the reason that lower-fidelity equipment is "observed" - a misleadingly scientific-sounding way to say "individually experienced" - to sound "good." No sale. If lower-fidelity gear is perceived as better-sounding than higher-fidelity gear, the most reasonable and likely explanations are that both pieces of gear are audibly transparent and the listener experienced a subjective preference for the one that happens to measure worse; or that the worse-measuring piece of gear is not audibly transparent and the listener enjoys whatever that gear's euphonic effect might be.

These are certainly not the ONLY explanations. But they are the presumptive ones, and "sound quality is both objective and not the same as fidelity" is not evidence of a different explanation. That's not philosophical precision; it's sophistry.

First there ARE people who equate "High Sound Quality" with "High Fidelity." That is why you used it as an example in the first place! And it was worth disambiguating those two things.

Again, no sale. There are people who equate high sound quality with high fidelity because when it comes to the contribution of the playback gear - NOT the quality of the recording itself - high fidelity IS the most reasonable metric to use to evaluate the sound quality of the gear. Once again, I freely admit that it is not the ONLY metric, and it is not the only LOGICAL or REASONABLE metric. But you are making a much more extreme argument in the converse: that sound quality and fidelity must be disambiguated. No, they do not need to be disambiguated, because the connection is clear, obvious, and reasonable.

And then if someone like me lauds a piece of equipment (or source) that is not strictly "High Fidelity" often the response is "Look, nobody is disputing taste. It's fine you have a PREFERENCE for Lower Fidelity/Lower Sound Quality." But that sort of condescension (even if not meant so) derives from the very conflation I've been talking about - conflating High Fidelity with Higher Sound Quality, and "preference" as a proxy for saying "you like lower sound quality."

The error in the kind of response you are citing is not that the response is condescending. Nor is it that the response assumes that fidelity is a good standard for sound quality. The error in the kind of response you are citing is that is assumes that the "not strictly high fidelity" equipment you are lauding actually sounds any different than a "strictly high fidelity" piece of equipment. It is more likely that there simply is no objective difference in sound between your lauded gear and a better-measuring piece of gear, because many of the measurement differences we talk about a lot here are not actually audible in normal listening situations, unless those differences become really large, or unless the worse-measuring gear's performance is unambiguously worse than the threshold of human hearing for such things.

So if you really like a piece of gear that doesn't measure great, that's fine - that gear might very well still sound excellent. Therefore, folks shouldn't say things like, "well then you must just prefer worse sound." But if you were to take it to the next step and say something like, "not only do I love this poorly measuring piece of equipment, but I compared it with a better-measuring piece of equipment that has gotten a rave review here, and the worse-measuring gear sounded better to me, so there must be things that measurements cannot capture that determine how good something sounds" - well then the most likely explanation would indeed be that you prefer the sound of euphonic distortion of some kind.

If you are not making that argument, then that's not an issue. But at the end of the day, what you're saying is, "I want to like what I like, and I want others to accept that I like what I like, and I want others to affirm that I like what I like for reasons that are objective and research-based but yet have nothing to do with high fidelity." You are of course free to want what you want, but you're going to be waiting a long, long time if you expect that a critical mass of ASR members are going to endorse and indulge you in that particular chain of desires.

 

[charleski]

there are still choices to be made (and resulting pitfalls) even in the digital domain

Earlier in this thread I pointed out a critical pitfall in the digital domain that ‘top-tier’ mastering engineers continue to fall into on a regular basis. It takes a few hours to learn how to avoid this and still produce a loud track. According to an old anecdote from someone who worked in Grundman’s studio a few times, he used to perform this by simply overloading the ADC … that’s smart . The video suggests that he does now use brick-wall ‘peak’ limiters, but it seems he’s confused about the difference between the attack and release knobs.

Industry professionals are just as vulnerable to magical thinking as audiophiles, if not more so. This is especially true when they cease to realise they’re just technicians who need to follow some simple rules.

 

[solderdude]

Industry professionals are just as vulnerable to magical thinking as audiophiles

^ this ^

Maybe replace the word 'audiophiles' with 'humans'.

 

[killdozzer]

Actually, what's all three of what? I understand you're making a joke, but my vinyl playback system is 35 years old, and works fine.

Yes, it was only a joke that you already bought all three of the records which create an illusion of more complex soundfield. The joke is that it is rare and that you already grabbed those few (three) rare ones, so we're no better of.

 

[killdozzer]

Sorry, but no.

Let's try again. First let's get one thing out of the way: I do not - and did not - think you were attacking my viewpoint. That's not the issue.

Now, my point was that vinyl sounds different than digital. There are different standards people can - and do - use to gauge sound quality. If - IF - you use fidelity to the source as the standard, then by definition digital is capable of better sound than vinyl. Of course one does not have to use fidelity as the standard for good sound. But it is a standard, and a sensible one at that.

So the first issue is that using fidelity to the source as a standard for sound quality - NOT the sound quality of the recording, but rather the sound quality of the audio gear reproducing that recording - is not a "conflation" of fidelity with sound quality as you claim. To call it a conflation is to say that it is an improper association, mixing one thing up with another. But it is not in any way improper. Quite the contrary. It is in fact quite logical, and if you want to get the most you can out of whatever recording it is that you're playing back, high fidelity is the most logical place to start. It is certainly not the ONLY logical way to think about sound quality. The fact that it is sensible - which it most certainly is - does not automatically make it exclusionary or narrow-minded. If you want to argue that using fidelity as a standard is "dismissive" of ways that some people listen to music, then we have to also say that using "simulating a real performance in the room" is also a standard that is dismissive of ways that some people listen to music. It's a criticism that can be leveled at any approach to good sound, and because it can be leveled at any approach, it's a meaningless criticism.

So one is free not to use fidelity as one's standard for good sound. And in that case, digital might produce better sound, or it might not - it depends on how digital and vinyl versions of various recordings sound to you, and how well the sound of each medium/format fulfills your expectations for good sound based on your standard.

Here we come to the second issue: in light of what I just wrote above, you might think, "aha - that's what I was saying: as soon as you move away from fidelity as the standard, you assume that it becomes a subjective free-for-all based on whatever sounds good to each individual."

But no, that was YOUR assumption about what I was saying. In fact, I'm perfectly happy to acknowledge and embrace the fact that, as you noted in your earlier comment, there is research on people's listening preferences (what they consider good sound), and that research suggests that there is a good deal of consensus on the subject. So there does appear to be some objective characteristics of "good sound." Therefore, one doesn't necessarily need "fidelity" at all in order to have an objective standard, or at least something approaching an objective standard.

Assuming that, we then come to what those consensus characteristics of good sound are, based on the research. My understanding of the research is that listeners tend to prefer neutral sound - flat frequency response (or the gently downward sloping but otherwise linear, even response that people apparently perceive as flat, and which Amir uses as a reference in his speaker reviews). If memory serves there is also a majority - though not necessarily as large of a majority - who prefer wider dispersion aka a larger perceived soundstage. My understanding from many threads here is that dispersion characteristics are at least in part considered a matter of taste - there is no consensus as to whether narrower or wider dispersion (within reason, anyway) equals better or worse sound quality. And we can use common sense combined with the research to safely say that people also value clarity, which generally comes from flat frequency response (or proper frequency balance) and from minimizing distortion and noise.

IMHO, this is where we come to the point where your argument becomes rather pointless. Because with the partial exception of dispersion characteristics - and again, to my knowledge there is no accepted dispersion standard that is the "right" one for good sound - all of these characteristics have a strong correlation with high fidelity sound reproduction. The correlation/association might not be 100% perfect - but it doesn't have to be in order for fidelity to be a reasonable standard for gauging good sound.

Which brings us back to where we started. If you feel that vinyl playback tends to produce sound that is clearer, more impactful, more dynamic, and more immersive than digital, then vinyl does indeed sound better to you. But I don't feel that vinyl playback tends to produce that kind of sound compared with digital. So even if clarity, dynamics, and so on are sonic characteristics that have a lot of research behind them to suggest that they are objective characteristics of good sound, there is still the problem that there is no consensus on how well digital vs vinyl provides those characteristics: many prefer digital, many prefer vinyl, and many don't have a strong or consistent or universal preference.



I'm quite comfortable with philosophical discussion; I'm in academia and the majority of my career as both a student and a faculty member has been spent immersed in close reading and in analysis that emphasizes conceptual clarity and details of language. For the third time, my objection is not to your pedantism or concern with niggling details. My objection is that you are not actually being pedantic, because you're not actually disagreeing with or correcting what I say. Instead, you're disagreeing with and correcting inaccurate and sometimes implausible inferences about what you think I am implying - like for example the mere mention of the obvious fact that many folks use fidelity as a standard for sound quality becomes an "example of a common conflation." No. Just no.




I agree. We just disagree on who is being conceptually sloppy and who is not.





There you go again. You're not simply arguing that sound quality is not (purely) subjective - you want to go further and argue that objectively true elements of sound quality may be the reason that lower-fidelity equipment is "observed" - a misleadingly scientific-sounding way to say "individually experienced" - to sound "good." No sale. If lower-fidelity gear is perceived as better-sounding than higher-fidelity gear, the most reasonable and likely explanations are that both pieces of gear are audibly transparent and the listener experienced a subjective preference for the one that happens to measure worse; or that the worse-measuring piece of gear is not audibly transparent and the listener enjoys whatever that gear's euphonic effect might be.

These are certainly not the ONLY explanations. But they are the presumptive ones, and "sound quality is both objective and not the same as fidelity" is not evidence of a different explanation. That's not philosophical precision; it's sophistry.



Again, no sale. There are people who equate high sound quality with high fidelity because when it comes to the contribution of the playback gear - NOT the quality of the recording itself - high fidelity IS the most reasonable metric to use to evaluate the sound quality of the gear. Once again, I freely admit that it is not the ONLY metric, and it is not the only LOGICAL or REASONABLE metric. But you are making a much more extreme argument in the converse: that sound quality and fidelity must be disambiguated. No, they do not need to be disambiguated, because the connection is clear, obvious, and reasonable.




The error in the kind of response you are citing is not that the response is condescending. Nor is it that the response assumes that fidelity is a good standard for sound quality. The error in the kind of response you are citing is that is assumes that the "not strictly high fidelity" equipment you are lauding actually sounds any different than a "strictly high fidelity" piece of equipment. It is more likely that there simply is no objective difference in sound between your lauded gear and a better-measuring piece of gear, because many of the measurement differences we talk about a lot here are not actually audible in normal listening situations, unless those differences become really large, or unless the worse-measuring gear's performance is unambiguously worse than the threshold of human hearing for such things.

So if you really like a piece of gear that doesn't measure great, that's fine - that gear might very well still sound excellent. Therefore, folks shouldn't say things like, "well then you must just prefer worse sound." But if you were to take it to the next step and say something like, "not only do I love this poorly measuring piece of equipment, but I compared it with a better-measuring piece of equipment that has gotten a rave review here, and the worse-measuring gear sounded better to me, so there must be things that measurements cannot capture that determine how good something sounds" - well then the most likely explanation would indeed be that you prefer the sound of euphonic distortion of some kind.

If you are not making that argument, then that's not an issue. But at the end of the day, what you're saying is, "I want to like what I like, and I want others to accept that I like what I like, and I want others to affirm that I like what I like for reasons that are objective and research-based but yet have nothing to do with high fidelity." You are of course free to want what you want, but you're going to be waiting a long, long time if you expect that a critical mass of ASR members are going to endorse and indulge you in that particular chain of desires.

Sadly, I must say I gave this a shot. And it was heart-breakingly futile. Since I don't think Matt is dumb, I concluded it's a new form of trolling I dubbed "soft-trolling". It's endless repeating of everything a troll would say, but without cuss words so that it gets under the mod's radar. It consists of obfuscating, obfuscating, obfuscating... First it's cars, then food, then cooking, then lifestyle, than quotes from philosophy... Still, behind few dozen k words, there is only "better for me is equal as objectively better". I have found no other argument worthwhile, nor do I consider this a valid argument. You simply can't equate subjective and objective. And you shouldn't.

Imagine him coming up third in a race and then asking for his gold medal...

 

[Mulder]

This is mostly so. I think there are other considerations though: (1) lots of unusual, historic, and oddball stuff from around the world is only found on vinyl, particularly early classical from less well known artists, world/folk music, and spoken word; (2) used vinyl is often less costly (though buyer beware); (3) it's easier for middle-aged and older nerds to read librettos and liner notes in larger format; (4) album art was a thing for awhile and some of it's still interesting. Of course, none of this has anything to do with fildelity.

As Rudy Van Gelder is quoted, "The biggest distorter is the LP itself. I've made thousands of LP masters. I used to make 17 a day, with two lathes going simultaneously, and I'm glad to see the LP go. As far as I'm concerned, good riddance. It was a constant battle to try to make that music sound the way it should. It was never any good. And if people don't like what they hear in digital, they should blame the engineer who did it. Blame the mastering house. Blame the mixing engineer. That's why some digital recordings sound terrible, and I'm not denying that they do, but don't blame the medium."

Vinyl was a way of getting good music into the hands of the masses of us who could enjoy something that sounded "pretty good" for not too much cost. I still enjoy it as a fun way to explore sounds I might not be able to find elsewhere and let the pops and clicks fall where they may. Of course, most of the truly "great" music I listen to from Bach to the Beatles is digital.

Yes. Off course. There can be several different reasons why people listen to vinyl. But these days we have a vinyl revival. As I se it, the reason for this has nothing to do with audio quality. There are other explanaitions. IF mainstream consumers really cared for audio quality in an audiophile sense, then record companies would put much more effort into making digital sound as good as possible. But they don’t, because for the main stream consumer audiophile audio quality is of limited priority.

 

[MattHooper]

Thanks again.

I'm having a similar issue with each of your (long..like mine!) posts. I'll see one part and react "yes, we agree" and the next moment "whoa, that's a misconstrual of my position" and then "wait, that doesn't seem to make sense to me." Addressing it all would make my already too-long posts even longer. So I'll try to stick to the essentials as I see them.

I've been arguing that, when we are getting in the the fine details, conceptually we want to notice "High Fidelity Reproduction Of The Signal" and "Good Sound Quality" (qualities many would associate with Good Sound) are not one and the same. They are separable. High Fidelity in this understanding CAN produce Good Sound quality - it has the POTENTIAL - but it is not guaranteed. The equipment - high fidelity or not - doesn't produce sound on it's own. The quality of the SOUND is ALWAYS going to be dependent on the source. This is inextricable.

We have to be able to play back any source through a High Fidelity system and STILL be able to rate the sound we are hearing as "poor" or "better." (Which is what we do in my work all the time, and most of us do anyhow).

So, clearly, defining "Good Sound quality" in to the very definition of "High Fidelity" can not work...when we are talking about source signals, which will vary in sound quality. For instance, if someone DEFINED digital sources as High Fidelity, and made that synonymous with "Good Sound," it would bar us from actually being able to assess variations in recording sound quality "just because it's digital!" I *think* you agree with that?

But then you go on to argue, essentially: Ok, but when it comes to the EQUIPMENT itself, then we CAN define Good Sound quality IN TO (or be synonymous with) the concept of "High Fidelity EQUIPMENT.

So...now, somehow, that is supposed to make sense?

No.

Sound Quality is, and must be, a description of our perception of sound - that's what the "quality" part means. How Good It Sounds. Trying to ascribe "Good Sound Quality" as part of the definition of High Fidelity equipment is a fundamental error like attributing "High Value" as part of the "definition" of "bars of gold," as if "being valuable" were some objective, intrinsic property of Gold, inseparable, rather than our valuing that determines the value of gold (which could wax and wane)!

The equipment only exists to reproduce the source. It's inextricably linked to how the source sounds. If you take a High Fidelity system and play back what anyone would declare to be a horrible recording - muddy, distorted, etc - on what grounds would it make sense to declare "This Equipment Sure SOUNDS GOOD!" ?? That's just incoherent, trying to juggle two negating versions of "good sound quality" at the same time; the one that rates the source as "sounding bad" but suddenly rating the equipment producing EXACTLY THAT SOUND as "sounds good."

This is why it just does NOT work to try to incorporate Good Sound Quality - or ANY particular sound characteristics - IN TO the definition of "High Fidelity" whether it's the source or the equipment.

So what type of relationship between High Fidelity equipment and Good Sounnd does make sense?

Well, we can use the terms like High Fidelity Equipment as a short-hand, a proxy for "Capable of producing High Quality Sound."

That makes sense, and as I've mentioned numerous times here, that surely IS the reason why people here pursue equipment capable of being High Fidelity To The Recorded Signal. The promise of High Sound quality. Given variations in the source, we aren't expecting that everything will sound "good" through such a system, but it holds the capability of sounding Good IF THE SOURCE IS GOOD SOUNDING.

So there's no problem at all with referring to High Fidelity Equipment as a proxy for Good Sound in this way (capable of producing Good Sound quality).

And generally speaking, I think this is how most will understand it.

So if THAT is what you mean by relating Good Sound Quality to High Fidelity, then we'd totally agree.

But that isn't what you seem to be saying. You offered an example where *someone* defines High Fidelity as identical to Good Sound.
And then you yourself seemed to defend just this form of definition, at least for equipment:

"So the first issue is that using fidelity to the source as a standard for sound quality - NOT the sound quality of the recording, but rather the sound quality of the audio gear reproducing that recording - is not a "conflation" of fidelity with sound quality as you claim. To call it a conflation is to say that it is an improper association, mixing one thing up with another."

But we aren't talking about mere associations. You keep bringing up the concept of DEFINING "High Fidelity" as synonymous with Good Sound, or certain sound characteristics! It is a conflation if someone is defining "Good Sound Quality" in to the term 'High Fidelity" and/or when you define actual sound characteristics in to the "definition" of High Fidelity, as you did here:

"In fact, for some of them (clarity and full frequency response in particular) high fidelity is synonymous - they are part of the definition of high fidelity."

I've argued why that is so problematic. These concepts you are defending, whether defining Good Sound in to the definition of High Fidelity in regards to the signal or the equipment, suffer the problems I have pointed out. They are at best muddled or perhaps not stated clearly, at worst, incoherent as practical propositions. (And I see this problem running through much of the rest of your response)

If you are not making that argument, then that's not an issue. But at the end of the day, what you're saying is, "I want to like what I like, and I want others to accept that I like what I like, and I want others to affirm that I like what I like for reasons that are objective and research-based but yet have nothing to do with high fidelity." You are of course free to want what you want, but you're going to be waiting a long, long time if you expect that a critical mass of ASR members are going to endorse and indulge you in that particular chain of desires.

First, using the term "want" seems to imply a sort of dismissive psychoanalysis, wouldn't you agree?

Virtually everyone here is engaging in justifying - giving reasons for what gear they like, or would like to purchase. So I could just say of you or anyone else "what you're saying is "I want to like what I like, and I want others to accept that I like what I like, and I want others to affirm that I like what I like for reasons that are....etc." Doesn't really seem helpful, does it? And it comes off as being dismissive - like it's the psychology, not really the soundness of the arguments that might be motivating someone. Whatever our wants (and that was not an accurate account of mine) it's ultimately best to actually just address the arguments.
And when you try to psychoanalyze someone you are likely to get it wrong, and to the degree you associate the argument with that assessment, you'll likely get the argument wrong. As you just did

(For instance, why would you assume that what I like has "nothing to do with high fidelity?" Of course it does. Not every single iota, but mainly speaking and using High Fidelity as a proxy for equipment that is low in distortion, that type of equipment will tend to sound better to me, as it does for most people. I perceived Revel speakers, for instance, to produce very high quality sound with good sources, as research would expect. Are my Thiel and Joseph speakers as accurate as some other speakers it's possible to own, like some of the best measuring speakers we've seen on this site? Probably not. Are they capable of higher fidelity/lower distortion than the vast majority of equipment most normal folks own? Sure they are, and that helps them sound better to me. To sometimes enjoy a sight flavouring in the sound is not to utterly abandon the benefits of high fidelity equipment. I reject such binary thinking. And so does, I think, folks like Toole who are fine juicing a bit of EQ sometimes, or upmixing sound to his High Fidelity Revel speakers).

Cheers.

 

[MattHooper]

Sadly, I must say I gave this a shot. And it was heart-breakingly futile. Since I don't think Matt is dumb, I concluded it's a new form of trolling I dubbed "soft-trolling". It's endless repeating of everything a troll would say, but without cuss words so that it gets under the mod's radar. It consists of obfuscating, obfuscating, obfuscating... First it's cars, then food, then cooking, then lifestyle, than quotes from philosophy... Still, behind few dozen k words, there is only "better for me is equal as objectively better". I have found no other argument worthwhile, nor do I consider this a valid argument. You simply can't equate subjective and objective. And you shouldn't.

Imagine him coming up third in a race and then asking for his gold medal...

I would encourage you to bypass reading my posts. Then you'll be less likely to comment on them, which also means I'll see less strawmanning of my position (as you've done once again there. "better for me is equal as objectively better" is nonsensical and not what I've argued). A win-win.

Plus, maybe you'll be able to resist calling me a "troll" - which implies someone who is insincere and posts only with the intent to make people upset. I always prefer civil discussion and trying to understand other people's likes, dislikes and arguments. Unless someone is just clearly trying to take a piece out of me. Most of the responses suggest people don't see me as a troll. Look, also, to the ratio of likes for our posts.

 

[j_j]

I would encourage you to bypass reading my posts. Then you'll be less likely to comment on them, which also means I'll see less strawmanning of my position (as you've done once again there. "better for me is equal as objectively better" is nonsensical and not what I've argued). A win-win.

Plus, maybe you'll be able to resist calling me a "troll" - which implies someone who is insincere and posts only with the intent to make people upset. I always prefer civil discussion and trying to understand other people's likes, dislikes and arguments. Unless someone is just clearly trying to take a piece out of me. Most of the responses suggest people don't see me as a troll. Look, also, to the ratio of likes for our posts.

Well, I have to say that in my experience, misinformation that is left alone becomes "truth" and we all suffer. Having said that, I'm not taking a position on your comments, other than to point out that for 'true fidelity' we need first a definition, are we talking about the fidelity of the illusion, the actual soundfield of a live performance, or what?

 

[MattHooper]

Well, I have to say that in my experience, misinformation that is left alone becomes "truth" and we all suffer. Having said that, I'm not taking a position on your comments, other than to point out that for 'true fidelity' we need first a definition, are we talking about the fidelity of the illusion, the actual soundfield of a live performance, or what?

Oh I definitely agree.

But calling sincere people "trolls" and strawmanning arguments isn't a helpful way forward, which is what I was responding to.

As to "true fidelity," like I said in my reply to you, I agree we need to know what we are talking about, and it's not necessarily easy - for some of the variables you just mentioned - to come up with a definition that neatly encapsulates all the concerns we have as audiophiles. My reply wasn't meant to be my "own" definition: it was an attempt to describe how people at various times seemed to have addressed the concept of "High Fidelity/Accuracy," along with what I saw as the virtues and liabilities.

I hope none of that came off as "misinformation." (And I'd still be interested whether you agreed or disagreed, if you read it).

Do you have a definition you'd put forth for High Fidelity or what you are referring to as "True Fidelity?"

 

[pablolie]

While the loudness wars are deplorable, the topic has zero to do with the measurable differences between vinyl and digital. Heavens, I do remember my Dad said reel-to-reel sounded much better than LPs and he did buy those (and measurements bear that out, my Dad owned a Tandberg).

A superbly engineered recording that truly exploits the benefits of digital would be completely wasted on vinyl, unless the ritual is what you like (and I completely respect that). Admittedly, probably only 2% of available releases are engineered to that standard.

Today I have to reply to my own message.

Of course vinyl sounds different than digital. All you have to do is put the needle down and listen to the inevitable noise level (static, occasional pop etc) as you listen to music. If you can't hear that, your resident otolaryngologist can help you out.

I am not hating at all. As mentioned before, I absolutely agree vinyl can provide tactile and visual enjoyment, and of course there are good recordings on top of your musical preference that will further enhance the experience. But from any possible measurement angle, vinyl is a world apart (say over -20dB in SNR) to 1980-sumthin' CD technology.

Whatever recording engineers do with that potential performance envelope is their (and the musician's, you'd hope) choice, and has zero to do with the performance envelope embedded in both top digital and analog playback categories. And vinyl will never even be the best performing analog medium.

 

[tmtomh]

I've been arguing that, when we are getting in the the fine details, conceptually we want to notice "High Fidelity Reproduction Of The Signal" and "Good Sound Quality" (qualities many would associate with Good Sound) are not one and the same. They are separable.

You do realize you have been saying this over and over (and over) again to the one guy in this thread who is agreeing you, yes? This exchange started because I wrote that IF high fidelity is one's standard for sound quality, THEN the vinyl medium is, by definition, a lower sound-quality medium. Surely as a philosophy enthusiast you understand that an if-then statement is a conditional statement. The "if" is not the only possibility.

High Fidelity in this understanding CAN produce Good Sound quality - it has the POTENTIAL - but it is not guaranteed. The equipment - high fidelity or not - doesn't produce sound on it's own. The quality of the SOUND is ALWAYS going to be dependent on the source. This is inextricable.

Well of course: hi-fi equipment doesn't remove distortion and noise from recordings any more than it makes mono recordings into stereo ones. But that does not mean that the quality of the sound is always dependent on the source. A turntable with mediocre speed stability is always going to produce audible variations in pitch. A recording made on a tape deck (or a direct cutting lathe if you want to go back that far in history) with speed variation is still going to sound worse in the speed/pitch department when played back on a turntable with its own speed problems than when it's played back on a turntable with good speed stability, or when played back on a digital system. A recording with audible tape hiss sounds noisier when played back on a vinyl system that transmits audible groove noise than it does when played back from a digital file. The source and the equipment each contribute to the sound quality that we hear. We are capable of distinguishing between the two, and it would be crazy to intentionally refuse to distinguish between the two conceptually.

We have to be able to play back any source through a High Fidelity system and STILL be able to rate the sound we are hearing as "poor" or "better." (Which is what we do in my work all the time, and most of us do anyhow).

Yes, of course.

So, clearly, defining "Good Sound quality" in to the very definition of "High Fidelity" can not work...when we are talking about source signals, which will vary in sound quality.

Yes. But the idea that we are talking about the sound quality of source signals, and the sound quality *only* of source signals, is something that you just made up. We can - and do, and should - also talk about the sound quality of the audio reproduction equipment too. In fact, the entire subject of this thread (not to mention the subject of the specific statement I made that set you off on scratching your pedantic itch) requires that we talk about the sound quality of equipment. We cannot even ask, let alone start to answer, the subject question of this thread - does vinyl sound different? - unless we can talk about the sound quality of equipment and formats, neither of which are the recordings/sources.

For instance, if someone DEFINED digital sources as High Fidelity, and made that synonymous with "Good Sound," it would bar us from actually being able to assess variations in recording sound quality "just because it's digital!"

Nonsense. You are conflating (or perhraps I should say claiming that if one uses fidelity as the standard then it's impossible not to conflate) the quality of the medium/format - digital - with the quality of any particular recording that might be stored on that medium/format. Assuming sufficient sample rate, bit depth, reconstruction filtering, and so on, digital is a high fidelity medium/format. It is capable of excellent sound quality that equals or exceeds the limits of human hearing. It can encode and store recordings of varying sound quality, and we can easily tell and talk about whether a recording stored on a digital medium has good or bad sound quality - in fact, digital's excellent inherent fidelity and sound-quality capabilities *help* us more easily discern and distinguish the sound quality differences between different recordings.

But then you go on to argue, essentially: Ok, but when it comes to the EQUIPMENT itself, then we CAN define Good Sound quality INTO (or be synonymous with) the concept of "High Fidelity EQUIPMENT.

So...now, somehow, that is supposed to make sense?

It makes perfect sense. The fidelity of equipment is strongly correlated to its sound quality. The fidelity of equipment has nothing to do with the sound quality of a recording, since the recording was not made using the equipment we are using to play back that recording.

Sound Quality is, and must be, a description of our perception of sound - that's what the "quality" part means. How Good It Sounds. Trying to ascribe "Good Sound Quality" as part of the definition of High Fidelity equipment is a fundamental error like attributing "High Value" as part of the "definition" of "bars of gold," as if "being valuable" were some objective, intrinsic property of Gold, inseparable, rather than our valuing that determines the value of gold (which could wax and wane)!

Yes, good sound quality is about our perception of sound. There are many aspects of a recording's sound that can make us perceive its quality as good or bad. So too are there many aspects of audio equipment's level of fidelity in reproducing recordings that can also make us perceive that reproduction quality as good or bad. So again the sound quality of a recording becoming part of the definition of the fidelity level of equipment would indeed be a fundamental error. But of course no one would ever propose that.

As for gold, gold is not valuable only because we value it as such. It is also valuable because it is not a different metal or a different substance. So while we may decide not to value gold anymore, and to value something else instead, that will not change the fact that gold is gold and gold is not lead. Moreover, it's an irrelevant analogy because gold's value is not intrinsically tied to any of its immutable physical qualities. But high fidelity equipment will always be capable of good sound because good quality sound - sound reproduced with little to no audible distortion, noise, or frequency nonlinearity - is an intrinsic quality of high fidelity equipment.

The equipment only exists to reproduce the source. It's inextricably linked to how the source sounds. If you take a High Fidelity system and play back what anyone would declare to be a horrible recording - muddy, distorted, etc - on what grounds would it make sense to declare "This Equipment Sure SOUNDS GOOD!" ??

On the grounds that the recording will sound worse when played back on audibly inferior equipment.

That's just incoherent, trying to juggle two negating versions of "good sound quality" at the same time; the one that rates the source as "sounding bad" but suddenly rating the equipment producing EXACTLY THAT SOUND as "sounds good."

I will just let this one sit there, because I am very comfortable with letting others read what you've written there and decide for themselves who is making sense and who is not.

Well, we can use the terms like High Fidelity Equipment as a short-hand, a proxy for "Capable of producing High Quality Sound."

That makes sense, and as I've mentioned numerous times here, that surely IS the reason why people here pursue equipment capable of being High Fidelity To The Recorded Signal. The promise of High Sound quality. Given variations in the source, we aren't expecting that everything will sound "good" through such a system, but it holds the capability of sounding Good IF THE SOURCE IS GOOD SOUNDING.

So there's no problem at all with referring to High Fidelity Equipment as a proxy for Good Sound in this way (capable of producing Good Sound quality).

All that verbiage, all that protestation, all to arrive at a distinction without a difference.

And generally speaking, I think this is how most will understand it.

They will indeed. Because that's the most sensible way to understand it.

So if THAT is what you mean by relating Good Sound Quality to High Fidelity, then we'd totally agree.

I do, and we do agree.

But that isn't what you seem to be saying. You offered an example where *someone* defines High Fidelity as identical to Good Sound.
And then you yourself seemed to defend just this form of definition, at least for equipment:

"At least for equipment" - well, yes, the distinction between equipment and recordings is rather fundamental, and I can't decide if it's amusing or sad that you are unable or unwilling to grasp the distinction. The fact that we play recordings on equipment doesn't mean that we cannot hear, discern, and discuss the contribution that each makes to the overall effect that we perceive. If you play a recording and it sounds pitchy, you don't say, "oh well, no way to tell if that speed variation in the piano notes is caused by my equipment or the recording since sound quality is just the end result that we hear." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But we aren't talking about mere associations. You keep bringing up the concept of DEFINING "High Fidelity" as synonymous with Good Sound, or certain sound characteristics! It is a conflation if someone is defining "Good Sound Quality" in to the term 'High Fidelity" and/or when you define actual sound characteristics in to the "definition" of High Fidelity, as you did here:

"In fact, for some of them (clarity and full frequency response in particular) high fidelity is synonymous - they are part of the definition of high fidelity."

I've argued why that is so problematic. These concepts you are defending, whether defining Good Sound in to the definition of High Fidelity in regards to the signal or the equipment, suffer the problems I have pointed out. They are at best muddled or perhaps not stated clearly, at worst, incoherent as practical propositions. (And I see this problem running through much of the rest of your response)

You realize that you have just argued that it's problematic, muddled, and incoherent to "define actual sound characteristics" like clarity and linear frequency response - clarity and frequency response! - "into the definition of high fidelity."

Here too I'm just going to step back and let that one sit there, because what could a critical response possibly do that you have not already done yourself?

 

[drewdawg999]

I don't like seeing Bernie Grundman's good name dragged through the mud. Been watching some vids that he speaks in lately and he's quite the groovy guy, with an enormous amount of experience and knowledge to share. He's a mastering legend for good reason, and I believe he's a hero of audiophile classic rock and jazz. He has some not so nice things to say about digital though, and that may rub some people here the wrong way but still, he knows what he's doing and I love the records he's mastered.

Found some cool stuff today I'd like to share. It's one of Bernie's finest moments, the old Classic Records pressings of Zeppelin that are now fetching big bucks. I only have III on vinyl that I originally spent like 30 bucks on. But I found some rips today that might be illuminating, or not, who knows. I'm enjoying them very much and I prefer them to the HD remasters that I believe were supervised by Jimmy Page himself. They sound lean in comparison and I like my Zeppelin warm and fat. So here's a Pepsi challenge:

LP vs HD

Tried to volume match in Audacity. Two song clips, 2 different vinyl rippers so they'll have different sound signatures as well. They're pretty loud songs, just ones that I like. But I think you'll find both the old LP and the HD remaster to be high fidelity. I think the LP got the higher quality mastering here, and should demonstrate that vinyl has more than enough dynamic range to cover music like this. So is vinyl always warmer and fatter? I don't know, most of the time I guess. But I think they can master vinyl to sound just like the digital remaster here, I don't think a high end vinyl setup is short on detail or clarity. Not hearing any distortions either. But why would you want vinyl to sound like digital? That would defeat the whole purpose of it.