Home General Asylum

General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ General Asylum ]
[ Alert Moderator ]

Re: Agreement and disagreement

Hi David,

Thanks for putting together such a thoughtful and in-depth reply. I always enjoy your posts, the disagree as well as the agree parts.

To quote Led Zep, "...sometimes words have two meanings", so perhaps "emotional perception" should have been differentiated from "auditory perception" in my post. A stereo image is an example of an auditory perception, while goosebumps are an emotional perception. I'm focusing on auditory perception as the first step; the goosebumps may or may not happen depending to a significant extent on the individual listener's state of mind.

I will concede that individual preference varies quite a bit, and even speculate that individual tolerance for imperfections may vary more than individual delight with things done right. For instance, vinyl surface noise bugs the heck out of some people, but others listen right past it as if it wasn't there.

Conceding that perfect waveform replication isn't presently possible, why would recreation (as closely as possible) of the auditory perception that the performers and/or engineers intended be an unworthy goal? It's actually a fascinating goal to pursue, because it requires delving into not only acoustics but also psychoacoustics. For exmple, one would go to great lengths to minimize distortions that matter, and not worry so much about those that matter little or not at all. Establishing which is which is the subject of much of the research documented in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society.

I can't argue against your appreciation of the differing presentations offered by different sound systems, because I must confess to the same fascination! But even if we were in danger of the entire audio world adopting Earl Geddes' paradigm and all systems converging towards accurately recreating the acoustic perception the artists intended, there's enough variation from one recording to another that it would probably take a while before we all turned away in boredom. And I know the Earl quote I used referred to "the original event" instead of to "the perception that the artist intended", but in many cases "the original event" never happened the way it was intended to be perceived - just like the shooting of a movie.

I don't think Earl is at all averse to blind subjective evaluations, as I've seen some of his research techniques up close. In fact he let me take one of his distortion perception tests via headphones, but since I knew what the test was testing he discarded my results even though I had no idea what types or levels of distortion were being presented. On the other hand, Earl does not trust non-blind listening tests, not even on himself.

How about I finish off with another Earl quote:

"When I paint, I am an artist. When I listen to music on a sound system, I am a passive listener, one who is not involved in the production of the art. Therefore, I want to hear what the "artists" intended for me to hear - good or bad. I am free to judge this art, but to reinterpret it is not my role."

Duke



This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Schiit Audio  

Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
You can not post to an archived thread.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]