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In Reply to: RE: Another scientist would discover electricity, just a little later. posted by carcass93 on March 03, 2011 at 09:52:55
I also think it's fair to see if there has been a detrimental effect on interest in the hobby as a result of this move toward ever more connoisseurship.
Follow Ups:
because there's no "mid fi" left to bring new blood into the hobby. Even though there is still a good selection of modestly-priced, high value gear, some of it reviewed in Stereophile and TAS, kids get scared by $1000 cables and $40,000 speakers, and it's hard to blame them.
Now, had you said "Kids have no idea, and don't give a s..t about $1000 cables and $40,000 speakers" - I would agree with you. I just don't see why it's a bad thing - this hobby is relatively exclusive, and let it stay that way.
At least is is according to what kids have told me, in at least one case on the Asylum. Their image of us audiophiles is a bunch of overweight 50 year old guys with scruffy beards, spending thousands on gear that nobody cares about.
Now you might say what matter if the hobby doesn't attract new blood? From a personal perspective, and aside from a vague feeling of melancholy and personal obsolescence, it probably doesn't. Audio and video paid the rent for many years, for which I'm sincerely grateful -- how many people find people gullible enough to pay them to do their hobby? And even if the audio business were to disappear overnight, I could keep myself happy forever with what's available on Audiogon, or for that matter from Parts Express.
But I like to think that others will have the same opportunity I did to enjoy good sound, and the deep pleasure it's given me over the years. And if we don't attract new blood, fewer people will.
> Their image of us audiophiles is a bunch of overweight 50 year old guys with scruffy beards, spending thousands on gear that nobody cares about. <
Where does this stereotype come from??? I'm clean-shaven!!! Sheesh! :)
From a post of TeddiJackEddie's:
"You know the type - belly hanging over his pants, totally out-of-style clothes, scraggly beard."
http://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=critics&n=50423&highlight=totally+out-of-style+clothes,+scraggly+beard&r=&search_url=%2Fcgi%2Fsearch.mpl%3FForumSelect%3DSelected%26amp%3Bauthor%3Dlake%2540http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ciekawe.znajduj%EA.olawa.pl%2F%26amp%3Buser_id%3D52179%26amp%3BsortOrder%3DDESC%26amp%3B
Except I misremembered "scraggly" as "scruffy" . . .
Being a scraggly bearded pot bellied audiophile, wearing dis-fashionable clothes and bearing an aura of weirdness, while I am not yet 50 - I don't hang around audio shops - not since I turned 40. I got into the hobby when I was 16 and got into my own entry level "high end" system at 25. I was in the habit of visiting the hi fi stores a couple of times a year each till I was in my mid 30s and moved away from where the stores were. By then the selection of stores and breadth of brands carried was narrowing so that there was little reason to visit at all - you don't get to hear anything new outside of HT, which is uninteresting to me.
I have followed online discourse and reviews since they started and I read the English press for a long while and the Stereo Review, Audio and Stereophile, I was always thinking of getting a TAS subscription, but had too much reading to allow for another subscription. After Stereo Review turned useless and Audio mag closed down, I was looking at Soundstage, Positive Feedback, and later 6moons and got subscribed to AVGuide rather than add another physical mag to my pile. I am considering a sub to UHF mag from up North.
I have read many of HPs reviews and find him to be a trustworthy reviewer with somewhat similar tastes and preferences to mine. I don't need to read between the lines of his reviews to obtain an honest description of the sound characteristics of the equipment. Often a review ends up being a repeat statement of the reviewer's personal biases as they pertain to the equipment in question and his emotional responses to the music, all of which requires much reading between the lines to extract the sonic qualities of the equipment.
The main problem I have had with TAS is the lack of measurements and exposition of specs that may not be true unless confirmed with measurements - though in recent years products have come closer to their published specs than in the past. Some of the sonic characteristics can be explained by particular measured aspects and knowing these can help substantially in matching the ancillaries.
I buy used rather high end equipment including cables, but am more of a cheapskate and tweaker and send my stuff for modification, or buy modified equipment, or modify and build myself. There is very little improvement in new equipment to justify the extraordinary extra expenditure. Rejuvenating your current equipment with up to date caps and cleaner copper wire without PVC dielectric is plenty of an improvement and routinely brings old equipment to near the best of today's. The only exception is in the new switching amps and SS memory digital sources and marginally the new DAC chips and the availability of high rez digital.
My take on HP is much like yours. I subscribed to TAS with Issue 2 after seeing the ad in the back of Audio -- in those days I had a subscription to Stereophile and Audio and was a student member of the AES so got the journal, not sure if I still subscribed to Stereo Review or High Fidelity at that point. I soon learned that HP was an astute observer who heard what I did on equipment that I owned and with which I was intimately familiar, as well as someone who had tastes similar to my own. And like Gordon Holt, he was frank. I really dislike the Julian Hirsch "read between the lines to discover what I really think of this" business: I read reviews to find out which pieces of gear are worth a listen, not to hear everything praised. But even more than that, I've never bought the notion that audio is a matter of taste and that there's no "absolute sound." What I'm looking for is equipment that reproduces the original performance as accurately as possible. And HP, like JGH, took that as his core philosophy.
I have the same problem you do with the absence of measurements in TAS. But that, curiously, didn't bother me back in the day, perhaps because the then-underground concept of actually listening to the equipment under test was so compelling to a kid who was just discovering that there was more to good sound than response curves. Arguably, today's Stereophile, with its mix of subjective reviews and measurements, hits the right balance here.
Agree with you about the value of used equipment. Progress is incremental. Arguably, in the case of preamps and amplifiers, it has been some years since there was real progress at all. Still, I understand the desire of some people to have the latest and greatest. I certainly feel it myself, and sometimes succumb.
On the other hand, I think the high end audio community has pretty assiduously rejected some of the real improvements that have come along, particularly surround and digital speaker and digital room compensation and crossovers. And I think we have to look seriously at the cost/benefit ratio of much of what we do in high end audio, because our priorities are askew. We throw thousands of dollars at tweaks that produce results that are so subtle that their very existence is controversial, while ignoring technological changes that have major and obvious sonic benefits. Not that I can hold myself up as an example, or exception: I experimented with four and even heard 16 channel sound 35 or 40 years ago, and still, after all these years, I'm listening to two.
I will not make an argument regarding the digital processing capabilities in today's PC and standalone crossover/EQ. I have been sitting on the fence on applying these for the last 3+ years. I have advised others on applying the Behringer DCX and coupling it with passive high frequency crossover components to extract the max from recordings. That since ADA paths still make a distinct impact on analog sources in the upper reaches. Typically, the reconstituted music sounds like the DAC more so than it sounds like the original.
I have used White Instruments passive LR only cut only EQ, which I still have but don't use anymore. Despite very good transparency, it is thin in the upper mids and treble, and slightly wooly in the bottom octave. You have probably come across these units before. Commonly used in the day for mastering EQ etc.
I have not tried to listen to a well set up music multichannel since my fiasco of an experience at our local best dealer. So you know I am not there on the page with you, but probably more so from lack of exposure than familliarity breeding contempt.
Re reliance on reviews, see my post at this URL, and see if you approve.
Whoa, only took me 5 months to find and respond to this . . .
Anyway, yes, it's not PC to say so, but I think that kind of reliance on reviews is perfectly reasonable, if you've come to trust the reviewers. Of course, ideally, we'd listen to everything we bought, but that isn't always possible, and when it is, what you hear at the dealer's or at the show doesn't always translate to what you hear at home. My favorite purchase ever, my 1-D's, was made purely on the basis of reviews. Others on the basis of industry scuttlebutt, back when I was in the industry.
Overall, I'd say that I bat about 50-50 when it comes to audio components I've purchased on the basis of recommendations and listening alike, which is far better than it would be if I bought things at random. You may not end up agreeing with the advice you were given, but it unquestionably improves your chances.
"But I like to think that others will have the same opportunity I did to enjoy good sound, and the deep pleasure it's given me over the years. And if we don't attract new blood, fewer people will."
I think they will be just fine. At least for 'personal' listening the average sound may already exceed what we had as young folks. I was pretty old before I could afford speakers that were as good as $50 headphones are now and it was the rare record, especially played on the turntables that were actually used, that could approach a 24/96 digital chain.
If Apple, the worlds most successful electronic toy company and currently a serious arbiter of taste, were to decide that they want to resell everyone their itune collection and move a new generation of players all they have to do is inform the herd that they must have hi-res or surround or something if they want to be 'in', have friends or practice procreating and it will be a done deal. Look at it this way, they've already limited out in the industrial design and size: they're cute as a bug's ear and cool as can be, what's left but performance?
Being an audiophile was once cool and a good system oozed success, virility and sophistication, just look at old Playboys from the 60's. Our time will come again! But it probably won't involve many of the extant 'high-end' folks, most of whom will die off when we do since they lack mind-share with the iGeneration(s). However just because our branch is nearing it's end doesn't mean that the tree will die or that the masses will be stuck with poor sound forever. As memory density and bandwidth continue to increase the value of MP3 tumbles. Why bother, just sell the experience and move on.
Which high end companies are working on useful things? Whose doing personalized pinna programming and headphones with built-in head position sensing so that surround sound is sane at home and on the road? No one in their right mind wants to be tripping over seven stupid speakers all over their room and have one good seat. Couple that with a decent head-mounted display and it's a whole new world. The thing is as we enter old-dufferhood, we really need the same gear. Personal sound can correct for hearing deficiencies, personal displays can correct of vision problems. Both can allow us to enjoy ourselves if stuck in a retirement home, a nursing home or the basement of our kid's place. Who cares about the real environment if you can virtually be at the Concertgebouw or watching reruns of Gilligan's island.
Gotta stop now, need Geritol...
Rick
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"Whose doing personalized pinna programming and headphones with built-in head position sensing so that surround sound is sane at home and on the road?"
Funny, you read my mind. With this technology, it should be possible to reproduce the spatial aspects of sound with complete fidelity. There's no reason to suppose that, except for the physical sensation of bass, a future iPod won't be able to provide a completely convincing simulation of an actual performance. In fact, I think we're a lot closer to perfecting headphone reproduction than we are to perfecting reproduction through speakers.
Interesting historical comparison, too. I think the main point audiophiles are making is that the audio gear that's available to kids doesn't compare with the best that high end audio has to offer. But your point that the typical kid has access to cleaner sound than his counterpart did 40 years ago is I think a valid one, both at the low- and mid-fi levels. And I like to think that improvements in sound quality will then grow organically out of the new media. To some extent, this has already happened, with high quality earphones and earbuds. There's also been some work on head position detection: Stereophile reviewed a very interesting system a few issues back, although it's geared to the emulation of loudspeakers rather than the recreation of the original sound field (which current recordings don't allow).
Unfortunately, I have the impression that these changes aren't going to come out of the high end industry at this point. High end audio has been very slow to change and adapt. Newer technologies -- file servers, high res digital, surround, etc. -- are adopted slowly, even grudgingly, despite a fair amount of attention in the audiophile press.
OTOH, I do think that loudspeakers will continue to be part of our lives, and those of our children. Home theater is one such area. I don't think most people want to be encumbered by a head-mounted display, despite its advantages. I could be wrong about that, after all, people walk around now with earbuds on, and future video displays will no doubt be light and easy to flip out of the way if the baby cries. But for the time being, anyway, I see home theater as fertile ground for improvements in loudspeaker technology, and I think that one of the industry's goals should be to find a way to get more people to select audio gear that works not just for home theater but for music reproduction as well. These goals aren't, IMO, mutually exclusive, in fact, the most satisfying movie sound reproduction I've heard has been through high end audio components.
And of course, there's the matter of partying. Maybe one day, all the guests will just sync up their bluetooth headphones, but for now, people need speakers if they're to dance to the same tune . . .
Oh I'm not against speakers, I use them most of the time. I'm using them right now.
But as you said: "I think we're a lot closer to perfecting headphone reproduction than we are to perfecting reproduction through speakers". I think that's typically been true but is especially nowadays where they are the prime transducers for so many people. I still have my decades old audio-technica Electret ones which beat most speakers but their transformer box rather limits their portability. The most interesting new ones I have are Koss clip-ons for which I paid $14. They pinch the pinnea a little but just do a startling job of plunking me right into the middle of the performance which much to my surprise I find I like. And, pinching aside, you hardly know you have them on. The first time I used them I stood up and turned around and got a brain cramp because the sound didn't shift with the movement so I guess it was adequately spoofed.
Perhaps if I had an RF version of them with a headband and a little pinwheel dipole on the top going speakerless might work. One thing's for sure, there are many more viable options and paths to good sound now than there were even twenty years ago and I think that's a good thing.
If we were both thinking of head-turning sound (tm) can Apple be far behind?
Rick
is going to happen, I think. At least one product is already being sold. It's only a matter of time before, as you suggest, companies like Apple start using it.
IMO, the true fruition of the technology will require a virtual reproduction of the sound field around a listener's head in the original performance space, along with real-time modeling of the listener's measured HRTF. Per the Helmholtz-Kirchhoff integral, you should be able to make such a recording of a live performance with an array of M-S microphones. Or the individual sound sources could be recorded along with a description of the acoustics and the sound field recreated synthetically. And you'll be able to use a similar recording to drive speakers using wave field synthesis. In that case, I suspect it will be most practical to record and reproduce only the part of the sound field that's coming from the front of the hall.
"sound field around a listener's head in the original performance space"
I suppose an issue would be where the virtual listener should 'sit' in the hall. Would it be fair to make you pay more for the sound from a good seat?
Push comes to shove, I just wish a lot more recordings were binaural, I don't really turn my head very much during a concert.
Rick
Now that they can be sold as downloads, it seems to me they should make binaural recordings along with the standard ones. Still, they have some significant localization problems, owing to individual differences in the HRTF and the inability to move your head, which I think contributes to front/rear localization, something we're surprisingly bad at. I'm not necessarily talking about large or frequent movements here. We make small head movements all the time and the brain is presumably equipped to make use of them. Plus I've noticed that some aspects of localization are sticky. Once the brain figures out that a sound source is up front, it tends to remember that and keep it there, subjectively. It will even ignore spatial cues so that things make sense, forex, my computer speaker sub is off to my side and it crossover over at 350 Hz so I can localize it if I try, but if I don't think about it, my brain assigns the bass image to the image from the front. Or it assigns dialog to the actor who's speaking on the left or right of the screen, even though it's emanating from a apeaker at the center of the screen.
"We make small head movements all the time and the brain is presumably equipped to make use of them."
I just tried ultra large head movements. We just got back from a walk down to the river and through the woods as it were. Since I'm married to a 'birder' I was trying to locate pecking by ear. Even cranking my head around and trotting back and forth I never really managed to get a fix on it. The problem is the Z axis, it's really hard to tell how far away the creature is especially in a stand of trees. You try to judge by the reverberation but it's iffy. The tweety birds are easier since the radiation is more direct, peckers make a lot of the tree resonate. It ended well as she finally spotted the Red-breasted sapsucker on top of a snag, but I'm sure it had flown from where it was. When I was trotting along the road trying to get a bigger base angle I was thinking of our conversation concerning head position. Guess that proves that stereo is for the birds...
Rick
I remember reading years ago about a study which found that subjects were able to localize sounds laterally with greater accuracy when they were able to move their heads. Also an ad hoc experiment someone tried -- in Stereo Review? -- in which he made a binaural recording with a moving head and then moved his head in unison with the original moves. Or something like that. He reported that it made the image pop into focus. Or, again, something like that -- I read it many years ago.
I've also read that people tend to underestimate distance when they're asked to estimate it. Since we use the percentage and character of reverberation to gauge distance, I guess it stands to reason that we'd be better able to do it indoors than out. To the extent we use parallax and triangulation, I'd also expect it to be easier when the sound source is continuous, though I'm just guessing here.
I saw a post a few days ago that linked to a product that did the head turning effect... Don't recall the name or even the AA forum.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
A head turning system was reviewed in Stereophile a few months back. It emulates the surround speaker system of your choice. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name either.
Wonder about those new scans for early Alzheimer's . . .
...but he DID.
I was wondering why you see journalists as hypothetically replaceable, but not scientists.Tony below seemingly understood that.
Edits: 03/03/11
Try it again with your "sarcasm cap" on and I bet you'll see what I meant. People act as though without Marconi, we'd have never had wireless communication for the masses.
I thought it was clear the point I was making was that even without those "discoverers" I mentioned, we would not presently lack for what they discovered.
Hope that's clearer.
My point was that they are are replaceable and we'd end up with the same benefits.
I think I get you. You're saying that by now we would be chatting on AA even without Al Gore...
But probably not without Rod.
Rick
"You're saying that by now we would be chatting on AA even without Al Gore... "
Maybe by this late date, even without Vint Cerf,... :-)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
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