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In Reply to: RE: Why stop at the reviewer? posted by Enophile on June 05, 2010 at 21:20:50
It's not about trumping- you completely misunderstand.
It's about understanding how to correlate other people's perceptions of sound (reviewers for example) to your own.
After all, presumably the whole point of reading reviews is to obtain a prediction of what the equipment would sound like if *you* listened to it.
However if both parties hearing frequency response differs substantially (a likely scenario), and the differences are not known and accounted for (almost always the case), the prediction will be decidedly incorrect.
kenzo
Follow Ups:
If we are lucky, a reviewer compares the sound of gear to the sound of live music.
Then, no matter what the state of his hearing curve, he can likely make a comparison that would be accurate in terms of frequency response.
If he were down 10dB at 15 KHZ, but a product varied from his live reference, he could still detect the presence of over or under-emphasis.
Yet another reason why the absolute sound should also be kept in mind.
If we had some yayhoo reviewer who only compared gear to gear, then I would agree with you completely! He has no reference and his hearing idiosynchrosies would become fatally folded into in his work.
Just curious; by 'live music' are you referring to unamplified instruments/voices?
Just curious,
When was the last time anyone heard live unamplified music?
I can't think of a concert that I've been to in the last decade that I was certain was not amplified in some way. Seems even the opera has mics these days.
The only ones I can be sure of are the street/subway performers. The rest, well lets say that I can't really be sure.
I have a couple of sources of live, unamplified music. The most frequent basis is listening to wifey play her baby grand piano in the living room. Since we live in a small college town, there are numerous (and cheap) opportunities for live music at the university where she teaches.
I will agree that there are some traditional sources like operas which are now using some sound reinforcement. The closest symphony orchestra to me uses spot mics and I find it to be very distracting. You see a soloist at center stage and hear them thirty feet off the ground at both sides of the orchestra. I don't go there much any more for that very reason. Surely in the NYC area, however, you shouldn't have any difficulty to find any number of live sources that do not.
rw
Unless you are stone deaf, you are using the very same senses to evaluate the live event vs. the recorded event. And while there is panning, limiting, compression and equalization going on, the goal of the end product - the recording - remains the same. Naturally, it always helps to hear master tapes (as I have) and guys like John Atkinson do on a regular basis to provide a level playing ground.
rw
There is a fatal flaw in your argument
"Then, no matter what the state of his hearing curve, he can likely make a comparison that would be accurate in terms of frequency response.
If he were down 10dB at 15 KHZ, but a product varied from his live reference, he could still detect the presence of over or under-emphasis."
That would assume that the recording engineer recorded the original event with the reviewer's peculiarities in mind, isn't it? As is often the case and for pragmatic reasons, the engineer applies some equalisation to the recording. What then happens to the reviewer's 'live' reference? The issue is not reviewer's hearing as the defects are consistent, but the poor choice of reference. The mastertape stands between the recording and the live event, worse still, the live event is a fleeting experience.
"Yet another reason why the absolute sound should also be kept in mind."
Keeping it in mind is about the only thing the you can do as chasing it as the reference amounts to chasing a mirage or the mythical unicorn.
Music making the painting, recording it the photograph
Excellent point I think, thank you. Although I would add that the measured response of a reviewer's hearing is still of vital relevance to every review and should be readily accessible to consumers.
kenzo
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