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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: Re: This is the road to perdition! ;-) posted by Dave Kingsland on February 23, 2007 at 13:54:17:
for a well-reasoned response. I agree with nearly all of it.Had I had time to refine my thoughts more (instead of the scattershot approach I took!) I would have simplified:
One, reliance on the "absolute" sound is useful in a general sense--I hear it nearly every day--but since we've established that recordings are "absolutely" unknowable it's dangerous to assume that a given recording has it.
Two, closely related, the tendency to use our test suite of "good recordings" can lead us astray for the same reason. The recordings that sound "right" on our system may simply have complimentary colorations to that system. If we switch out a component for something "better" we may discover that we've in fact made the sound worse, and we start chasing our tails for a new source, cables, speakers, or whatever to put things right again. Now you have inaccuracy chasing inaccuracy.
Since we can't evaluate recordings without an imperfect system, and can't evaluate a system or component without imperfect recordings, what to do? IMO it's look for the system or component that reveals the most differences between recordings. Such a system or component will by definition be more accurate to the recordings, since a coloration will be applied equally to all recordings, making them sound more alike.
Make sense?
[As an aside, I took something like 8 or 9 months to determine what level to set the tweeters in my most recent DIY speakers. (Measured "flat" was horribly bright, of course! ;-) ) I simply played the recordings, both good and bad, that I wanted to listen to. When I felt that, overall, things seemed too bright, I reduced tweeter level; when that proved to be too much, I went back part way. And so on. Eventually I didn't feel the need to change it anymore, and that was the point where bright recordings sounded bright, dull ones dull, and others "just right." Had I used just my "test suite" of "good-sounding" recordings (yes, I have one, too!) I might have arrived at a different--and likely erroneous--setting.]
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Follow Ups
- Thanks, Dave - markrohr 06:37:40 02/24/07 (1)
- Thank you also - Dave Kingsland 19:19:34 02/27/07 (0)
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