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In Reply to: RE: OK, first let us define "accuracy" . . . posted by caspian@peak.org on October 18, 2009 at 13:31:25
What the problem is that Accuracy is either "accurate" or it is not accurate. 2+2=4 and 4 is the ONLY correct answer. It is either 4 or it is an innacurate answer.
Using the notion that if something has flat response it is more accurate doesn't mean much if it doesn't SOUND or is not PERCEIVED as being more accurate. No matter what an engineer tells you it is completely irrelevant is the perceived response is that it sounds "unlike" the real thing.
And now you have a serious problem because without an Accurate baseline where every engineer and perfect pitch listener agrees that stereo system A is perfectly accurate and so now you can compare system B and C to A then all you're doing is relying in a highly incomplete set of measurements and looking for broad correlations.
And then you're left with perception and subjective opinions on what is "closer" to the real thing. Ask engineers what is more accurate and you get everything from horn speakers to panels to line arrays to single drivers. Engineers with degrees in the field can;t even agree on a speaker design that is "accurate" or "closer to the ideal". People bicker about tubes and SS but speakers make the bigger difference and on one is even remotely close on agreeing about them let alone the smaller differences of Tubes and SS or vinyl and CD.
And if we learn to accept the fact that nothing is perfectly accurate then why not look at what is subjectively enjoyable and reminds the listener that this "seems" to be the "real thing." For instance by far the most realistic sound to my ear when it comes to transient attack of instruments and decay (body) of acoustic instruments of piano comes from SET amplifier than something like a Bryston. Yet every scientific aspect and measured response that I've seen makes that a curious proposition that is highly frustrating for me.
I want to trust the measurements and the specs but I can't listen to the two and walk away from it saying the Bryston sounds more like the real thing - it may in fact be more "accurate" but it sure as hell doesn't sound more accurate. So what is the consumer to do - buy what it is "said" to be "accurate" because that is the goal or buy what makes a piano sound like a piano despite the second harmonic distortion goofball impedance problems and high THD. The fact is the brain ear interface is what provides us with the notion of "accuracy" and this is not a perfectly accurate interface.
And over the years of endless arguments why can't both coexist? It's like the vinyl CD debate - to me it's irrelavent - if this is about music there is SOOOO much music on vinyl not on CD that you should have a turntable. Conversely there is SOOOO much music on CD not on vinyl that vinyl philes should buy a CD player. If someone likes one over the other - so what? Why does everyone get upset?
...so *everything* varies from that ideal in one way or another.
Whether it's measured "accuracy" or "musical accuracy", compared to live unamplifed music in a real space, no audio component or speaker gets it all right.
It is the reviewer's job to identify the sonic signature of the DUT and describe it, with musical examples, in terms the reader can understand.
There is little point in describing my reference if reader's have never heard any of the components of my reference. To say a Sim Audio is "dark" doesn't really mean much because it may be "dark" because of the interaction with the overly bright reference I am using.
I am of the view (and unfortunately it doesn't work this way even with best intentions) that system reviews are more helpful to people than component reviews.
If I review and all Linn system - then you and everyone else on the forum can go out and determine if RGA's review of the Linn system holds merit with what you heard. If I suggest that the Linn system is polite or a little laid back compared to say an all Bryston/PMC system and you have easy access to the latter as well then you can determine if I'm hearing it the way you're hearing it.
But if you read a lot of reviewer's systems they have speakers perhaps that have not been sold on the market for more than 15 years. UHF magazine have reference system pieces few have heard. Their baseline reference is no help to you if you have not heard it - or likely will never be able to hear it.
At the end of the day I found reviews not to be very helpful to me. I decided that instead of "trusting" reviews I would get my butt off the couch and out of Chapters and listen to the stuff myself. Then I would create a list of stuff that I liked and see which reviewers were on the same page.
With the myriad of possible system combinations it seems ridiculous to me to be able to say "Rotel" sounds bright or Cary is veiled or whatever.
Just last week I auditioned a Rotel RC 1082 preamp - changed out the CD players and got wildly different results. The Tube CD player actually took on SS stereotypes of being open fast lean and a little bright while the SS CD player sounded dark heavy and a little veiled.
However with the tube misconception that tubes are soft and mushy and thick sounding if you heard the combination "most" people would blame the Rotel for being bright - after all it is Solid State. In reality I found the Rotel extremely commendable because it really did what it was supposed to do and give the listener a wide open window to what both CD players sounded like.
Was the tube CD player the problem - perhaps a mismatch - but it did bring IMO "more of the recording" out than the SS Sim Audio player. The leanness in the rock recordings simply didn't paper over the cracks and that tube cd player in a different system was pure excellence - still the Sim Audio CD player with the Rotel while a little veiled was easier in many respects to listen to longer term. But the tube CD player IMO was considerably better sounding in the system it was designed for - SETs and tube friendly speakers.
It's awfully difficult to review when confronted with such varying differences in sound. It's all well and good to have a "reference" amp or speakers but the fact is some stuff is just not going to get along with other stuff.
And IMO no words or graphs substitute the actual visceral experience of listening. The the trick is to have the confidence to buy what your ears tell you rather than some review, because after all - next month that reviewer will be telling you about some other amp that is absolutely wonderful.
...of reviewing a component, he uses other associated equipemnt, besides his references, to insure what he is hearing and describing is the DUT's sonic signature and is not a result of component or system interactions.
It's a lot of hard work.
That way the reader can decide if the DUT's strengths and weaknesses are appealing enough to add to his list for audition.
Any reader who purchases a component on the basis of a review without auditioning the component for himself deserves what he gets.
the way you explain "accuracy". It either is or it isn't. Instead, we get:
more neutral,
less,
closer to,
on one side or the other of neutral,
almost,
etc.
"Apparently, people now believe that mental telepathy is the foundation of communication and magic is the source of daily events. Consequently, we no longer have to participate in our own lives."
"Accuracy is either "accurate" or it is not accurate. 2+2=4 and 4 is the ONLY correct answer. It is either 4 or it is an innacurate answer."
Unfortunately, outside the realm of simple arithmetic, there are few "only" correct answers in the universe. In the real world (of, say, capacitor or resistor tolerances), you might have to settle for 3.997 as being RELATIVELY closer to perfect than 3.826. With slightly more advanced mathematics, many uncertainties come into play. Consider the case of Pi, which has been calculated out to thousands of decimal places, but still seems to keep going forever. How far do you need to calculate it for acceptable results? Maybe that depends, if you're an architect, on how big a round thing you're trying to build.
"And then you're left with perception and subjective opinions on what is "closer" to the real thing. Ask engineers what is more accurate and you get everything from horn speakers to panels to line arrays to single drivers. Engineers with degrees in the field can't even agree on a speaker design that is "accurate" or "closer to the ideal"."
Very true. Since absolute perfection is unattainable, these engineers focus on those aspects of performance which they personally (and dare I say "subjectively"?) find most important. Those who love efficiency and lifelike macrodynamics gravitate toward horns. Those into microdynamics and resolution of the finest midrange details like planars. Those who value wide, even dispersion and a huge soundstage like line arrays or omnidirectionals. And so on. But I suspect that MOST of them agree on the importance of reasonably flat frequency response, smooth (if declining) off-axis response, good phase tracking, low distortion, and lack of audible cabinet resonances. As a DIY speaker guy, nowhere near their level of expertise, I focus on these things because they are variables I can control. When I can measure precisely the response I modeled (and it sounds good to boot!), I know I've done something right.
"For instance by far the most realistic sound to my ear when it comes to transient attack of instruments and decay (body) of acoustic instruments of piano comes from SET amplifier than something like a Bryston. Yet every scientific aspect and measured response that I've seen makes that a curious proposition that is highly frustrating for me."
A lot of people have observed this, and I wonder if it has to do with complementary and cancelling distortions. The piano is notoriously the most difficult instrument to record. Microphones don't "hear" exactly like human ears, so maybe some of the piano's extremely complex overtone structure simply fails to get recorded, at the mic or somewhere down the signal chain? Maybe the SET's overtone structure "restores" something approximately similar to what got lost in the recording process, while the Bryston just tells you what is on the recording, and doesn't add its own commentary? Dunno--just speculating.
"And over the years of endless arguments why can't both coexist? It's like the vinyl CD debate - to me it's irrelevent - if this is about music there is SOOOO much music on vinyl not on CD that you should have a turntable. Conversely there is SOOOO much music on CD not on vinyl that vinyl philes should buy a CD player. If someone likes one over the other - so what? Why does everyone get upset?"
Sir -- let me shake your hand and buy you a beer! I love my vinyl (which includes hundreds of obscure titles that will NEVER see the light of laser) and I love my CDs. I've heard a number of different speaker types, including horns and planars, and have built conventional dynamic monopoles and omnidirectionals: I'm aware of the virtues and drawbacks of each type. I'm quite happy with my SS amp, but would certainly be open to listening to a good SET. I may yet build one from a kit or plans, just to see what all the fuss is about. (The only tube amp I have much experience with is the Dynaco ST-70, which I built from a kit when I was 16, and had frustrating reliability issues over the years).
I think people should listen to whatever they enjoy and can afford, even if it's only a table radio, regardless of whether I would enjoy it as much. I only get "upset" when I see GROSSLY misperforming or shoddily built products marketed as "high end," for ridiculous prices, and know I could build something far better at a fraction of the cost.
> > "Accuracy is either "accurate" or it is not accurate. 2+2=4 and 4 is
> > the ONLY correct answer. It is either 4 or it is an innacurate answer."
>
> Unfortunately, outside the realm of simple arithmetic, there are
> few "only" correct answers in the universe. In the real world (of, say,
> capacitor or resistor tolerances), you might have to settle for 3.997 as
> being RELATIVELY closer to perfect than 3.826...
Excellent post, Caspian. It is even worse than you describe, however, as
the performance of an audio component is _multi_dimensional. Any
particular component will depart from true accuracy to a different degree
on all of the possible axes, and will also be different from any other
component on every one of theose axes. A straight one-dimensional score,
as is being discussed, is both arbitrary and misleading. This is why we
insists that readers of Stereophile's "Recommended Components" listing
read the original review of a component to get the full picture.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
What is more accurate a photo taken of an object with a telephoto lens and a wide apature or a wide angle lens and a small apature? recordings are more like snap shots of the original event than a reconstruction of it. that alone almost kills the notion of absolute accuracy to an original event. a recording artist ultimately chooses a listener perspective and that choice is not an objective one. It is a purely subjective aesthetic choice.
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