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In Reply to: RE: Depth posted by jusbe on November 06, 2015 at 14:57:20
Personally I want accuracy, and by accuracy, I mean accuracy to the recording as it exists on the media I'm playing, to some half-remembered "live" experience.
Call it a personal quirk, I don't believe it's the job of the playback chain to "improve" the sound of the recording
I love the music of Dmitri Shostakovich
Follow Ups:
So, in your opinion then the majority of recordings are dry, airless and flat and that means "accurate" to you rather than a reproduction that is spacious and deep with rich tone and 3d players in a 3d stage??
Do you actually go to live concerts as a reality check about what real-life sound is like in a real acoustic space (not talking about rock or other amplified concerts here)? I was in Tonhalle in Zürich last Sunday listening to Piano trio, string quartet and piano quartet by late romantic Czech composers (like Dvorak). We sat mid-hall in the "small" hall of Tonhalle that is more suitable to smaller ensembles (it is still a quite large room). Was it tonally rich? Check! Was it spacious and airy? Check! Was it 3d and dynamic? Check! Was it flat and airless? Nope! Was it edgy and thin? Nope! Was it bright and agressive? Nope!
What makes you think that recording engineers cannot capture this to a large degree? I have a recording of Prokofiev Romeo and Juliette that was made with a single stereo ribbon microphone and no compression. It sounds like live (I have heard this piece in Zürich Tonhalle so I have some point of reference). However, it is a very difficult recording for systems to reproduce without sounded lifeless and mushed together. But get it right and it sounds like a (good) live event.
I also have a commercial recording of the Dave Brubeck quartet live in Mexico city 1968. It has space, air and loads of soundstage effects (3d images and different positions in depth for the players). If you don't get that on such a recording then your playback is most likely doing it wrong as I am sure it is closer to what those in Mexico city heard than through a chain that does what you are proposing.
What amuses me most is how you have reached this conclusion. Based on what? How your system has been reproducing them? What you think "accurate" should sound like? Do you go hear live, unamplified music? Do you just assume all the recording engineers of jazz and classical music are just idiots and don't know how to capture at least a decent slice of what they were hearing live?
How can you know exactly what is on the media you are playing without playback equipment and how can you possibly know that the playback equipment you have is playing it back exactly as it's on the media?
It's a circular question without an answer.
You can buy a $50,000 Trinity DAC (OK maybe 50,000? Euros) and some would say it 'reveals' exactly what's really on Redbook CD's but again, how can one know?
For all I know it's all an illusion and so what?
If it puts a smile on my face as I'm listening, I'm happy.
"How can you know exactly what is on the media you are playing...?"
One can't be certain, of course. You would have to hear with the ears of the producer listening to the proof pressing -- that isn't going to happen ever.
OTOH, it seems clear to me that the goal of very many audiophile is euphony not accuracy. To me it seems equally clear that equipment of that many use will introduce distortion.
I love the music of Dmitri Shostakovich
But I still haven't found it on the seating chart at Davies Symphony Hall so I'm not expecting it in my listening room. =:-0
Edits: 11/08/15
... except in the moment you're hearing it live.
As a goal I want to hear the recording including all the mistakes made by the engineer and producer. 90% of sound quality is the recording, 10% the play-back equipment. The 10% can never properly compensate for the 90%.
I love the music of Dmitri Shostakovich
It seems that you would be amazed at what can be captured on a recording and you would also be amazed about how many supposedly bad recordings are really not as bad as suspected but flaws were exaccerbated by poor playback equipment.
That being said, where do you get your 90:10 breakdown? Just pulled it out of thin air because you have a lot of recordings that sound bad with your system?
.
But given that we weren't part of the recording process, how are we to judge accuracy other than going by whatever sounds the most real?
It seems like you have jumped to the conclusion that your tube preamp's presentation of depth is wrong just because it uses tubes. It could very well be that it is more revealing of what's captured in the recording in some aspects and less accurate in others.
Likewise, in Chris' review of the Yggdrasil it seems like he wants to believe that one DAC is right and the other is wrong, rather than accepting that neither is a perfect reproducer and they have different strengths and weaknesses. He's also completely wrong in describing ringing as a problem with sigma-delta DACs.
nt
try it! you know you want to!
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