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In Reply to: RE: real life has headroom...and lots of it. posted by mikel on October 20, 2014 at 10:05:44
Given the perfect recording and ideal playback environment fine. But the vast majority of recordings and playback environments fall far short of the ideal.
There's no reason at all to assume perfect full range FR, perfect transient response and unlimited power/headroom are going to be ideal for any particular hi-fi application.
I mean it all sounds good but in practice I think time has proven objective performance takes a second seat to subjective listening preferences.
Give me rhythm or give me death!
Follow Ups:
For many years I lived with a system that had limited headroom. I dealt with distortion, clipping, blown fuses and a few blown drivers. Now I have a system that will play louder than my ears can stand, louder even than row 10 volume at a symphony concert. Now I adjust the volume until the recording sounds natural. The volume depends on the type of music and the perspective the producer chose when making the recording. I would never go back to a wimpy system incapable of sounding real.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
True, but what does that have to do with referring to high frequency reproduction as "headroom"?
The first thing to go in our hearing is the ability to hear higher frequencies and I don't think the ability of a system to play at higher volumes can remedy that condition.
One thing that may not be clear. The inability to hear sine waves at high frequencies does not imply the inability to benefit from extended high frequency response. Fifty years ago I could hear a 21 kHz sine wave, today it would be about 13 kHz in my best ear. However, I can still detect differences in sound quality when frequencies above 15 Khz are missing. I notice a loss of "air" with these recordings. Another way is on the dark side. Some recordings have noise at 15750 Hz caused by video interference. I can no longer hear this noise directly, but its presence imparts a grainy quality to these recordings. In some cases, filtering out is spike improves the sound quality.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
my point exactly.
thanks,
mikel
Tony, I have problems with this ability to detect frequencies that normal ears can't hear.
I just have the regular older guy ears so when some music on my system gets on my nerves because of some annoying lack of air or grit or whatever, I just call it a day and accept that I am a biological entity with vagaries that can't be (re)calibrated.
I have completely normal ears. Like yours, they aren't as good as they used to be. I commented on what I know to be true from editing recordings and filtering out "inaudible" high frequencies. Making these frequencies go away makes the music sound less lifelike. There are many mastering engineers in the same boat. Like other people they can perceive the "theoretically" impossible. But the theory is false. It assumes that acoustics and processing in the ear/brain/mind are linear and they are not. Linearity is a mathematical simplification. It does not apply to the real world. This is the same BS theory that says because nobody can hear 22 kHz sine waves that 44 kHz digital audio is sufficient.
I know I can't hear the TV set noise any longer (if I still had a CRT TV), but I can still hear changing the level of high frequencies above 15 Khz with an equalizer. Although lots of those high frequencies are supposedly inaudible to me compared to my youth, live concerts sound just as good as they used to.
But then, I never listened to rock music or went to rock concerts or worked with noisy power tools. Apart from specific health issues, most hearing loss is caused by excessive use, i.e. listening to many loud sounds.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"For many years I lived with a system that had limited headroom. I dealt with distortion, clipping, blown fuses and a few blown drivers. "Yea me too in the early 90s and before. I used to put a screwdriver in the fuse slot of my Polk Monitor 10Bs when I ran out of fuses - lost a couple of drivers that way. I kept them for almost 10 years.
That said you've got a great system Tony but not everyone around he is as fortunate as you - many of these people are where you were 40 years ago when you were just starting out.
And just to make sure this doesn't get lost in the shuffle - my point was for many/most people subjective performances trumps objective performance. I think that's been the hallmark of the high end since the majors got run off in the late 70s / early 80s.
Give me rhythm or give me death!
Edits: 10/20/14
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