what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?

RE: That Internal Tweek, posted on December 11, 2010 at 13:43:22
Palustris Audiophile Posts: 2408 Location: Cape Cod Joined: September 12, 2008	That's more like a psychic tweak.

nice!, posted on December 11, 2010 at 19:34:24

Don Till

"CD playback done right sounds very satisfying and can be better overall than some LP gear."

My take - a good cd player, including low cost portables, sound better to my ears than most vinyl playback systems regardless of cost. On the other hand I would take a my favorite TTs (example - wall mounted P3) with a nice cartridge (example - dyna 20xl) and phono section (example - dyna p75) over any CD player I have ever heard.

I get blown away at how good low cost Redbook CD can be - but it's not going to replace vinyl in my system.

"Hi-rez digital (24/192 or greater) will eventually replace LPs."

All I can say about this is that SACD had the potential to do so but didn't. But I think 24/192 might have an advantage because it fits on current and proposed multi-media formats - not sure if the same can be said for DSD.

Monster Cable running up against an IP lawyer at Blue Jeans, posted on December 12, 2010 at 00:09:18
k-k-k-kenny Audiophile Posts: 552 Location: Melbourne Joined: May 5, 2007	made for satisfying reading. And, for oldies but goodies, the Lampizator's "under the hood" CD player investigations are hard to go past: Wadia WT3200 = Marantz; Goldmund = Pioneer. For (I assume) a non-native English speaker, he sure has a decent turn of phrase

How would you define "good sound" and/or "bad sound"?, posted on December 12, 2010 at 02:43:57
genungo	Doing so would help me understand your revelations. I guess I'm especially interested in why you might think that recording quality could have little (or nothing?) to do with sound quality.

RE: It would be that ..., posted on December 12, 2010 at 04:10:48
Bill the K Audiophile Posts: 8386 Joined: June 3, 2006	More expensive, no cover.Eliminates non symmetrical loading.And sound hitting the cover can cause distortion.Worth the extra 1.5k. Bill

RE: Where is this crowd?, posted on December 12, 2010 at 04:29:58

theaudiohobby
Audiophile

Posts: 4674
Joined: January 16, 2003

Where is the " "measures the same - sounds the same" crowd that is the bane of many audio asylum posters? Where do they hang out? So far I have yet to see anyone use that statement without some very important provisos. Sounds to me that phrase has become an ubiquitous strawman argument for those defending themselves againt blind testing and measurements proponents.

Music making the painting, recording it the photograph

audibility data, posted on December 12, 2010 at 06:16:55
oldmkvi Audiophile Posts: 10583 Joined: April 12, 2002	Yes! I can hear it.

RE: How would you define "good sound" and/or "bad sound"?, posted on December 12, 2010 at 09:15:32

Don Till

Good sound means you can be captivated and musically satisfied by recordings of music regardless of the quality of the recording. With a good stereo one can evaluate recording quality but why bother? The difficulty is extracting oneself from the music in order to do it.

Bad sound = boomboxes, car stereos, low fi, and bad sounding expensive audio systems (especially those whose owners have a boombox in the garage that they claim sounds great on crappy pop/rock recordings). With these kinds of expensive systems one rarely hears the music over the attributes of the recording.

"I guess I'm especially interested in why you might think that recording quality could have little (or nothing?) to do with sound quality."

The only limitation imposed by studio or less than ideal recordings on a good hi-fi is how loud it can be played back.

Personally I am far more put off by overbearing accompaniment on recordings of musicians who strive to be taken seriously or cute technical additions or heavy handed production or squeeky clean sounding pop/rock music. This stuff might sound good - but I have no interest in hearing it.

A good recording of something that sounds bad live is still going to sound bad. There is no reason whatsoever to conclude that a compressed, eq'd, cut and paste studio production can't sound great. I love the sound of lofi recordings - by definition these are bad recordings yet they can sound fantastic.

I hope that clear it up.

Interesting viewpoints. (nt), posted on December 12, 2010 at 09:27:47
genungo	.

RE: Interesting viewpoints. (nt), posted on December 12, 2010 at 09:54:45
geoffkait	Apparently lo fi is better than hi fi. I did not know that.

RE: "Hi-rez digital (24/192 or greater) will eventually replace LPs", posted on December 12, 2010 at 10:01:12
JerryS Reviewer Posts: 2026 Joined: February 24, 2001	I've yet to hear 24/192 "done right".... Todd, it may be time to trade in your DA-2 for an Orpheus. I didn't see a media server in your main system, but I hope you can try Firewire someday. There is a much bigger improvement with Firewire over S/PDIF coax than there is for S/PDIF coax over Toslink.

More great examples!, posted on December 12, 2010 at 10:03:15
Enophile Bored Member Posts: 25269 Location: Northern Californistan Joined: October 15, 2005 Contributor Since: August 5, 2012	That Monster Cable one was perfect.

RE: Where is this crowd?, posted on December 12, 2010 at 10:27:22

kerr
Audiophile

Posts: 4376
Location: Central Indiana
Joined: November 10, 2003

>"measures the same - sounds the same"...So far I have yet to see anyone use that statement without some very important provisos<

And yet the most important proviso is the one they always omit... simply adding the words "to me" to the end of that declaration. If they did, there would be no argument. No one would demand proof of the claim.

>Where is the " "measures the same - sounds the same" crowd that is the bane of many audio asylum posters? Where do they hang out?<

Most have been bounced from PropHead, although a few remain on AA. HydrogenAudio... well, I think pretty much ALL the posters there are believers in that credo. But most of you folks... er... I mean, THOSE folks - lol... won't admit it. And why should they? It's a ridiculous claim and if they claim nothing, they don't have to prove anything under their own silly rules of engagement.

>Sounds to me that phrase has become an ubiquitous strawman argument for those defending themselves againt blind testing and measurements proponents.<

Nope - simple K.I.S.S Principle... it's an argument against everything sounding the same.

Seriously?, posted on December 12, 2010 at 10:46:57
genungo	I'd also like to know who is the mastermind behind his jumpsuits.

RE: Where is this crowd?, posted on December 12, 2010 at 11:32:12
theaudiohobby Audiophile Posts: 4674 Joined: January 16, 2003	Do you have a link to some of these "measures the same - sounds the same" threads on HA? Music making the painting, recording it the photograph

RE: Monster Cable running up against an IP lawyer at Blue Jeans, posted on December 12, 2010 at 11:38:36
Todd Krieger Audiophile Posts: 37333 Location: SW United States Joined: November 2, 2000	I'd just cite Monster Cable's lawsuit spree....... I mean, they sued the Boston Red Sox baseball team over the famed left field wall, the "Green Monster"........

RE: Where is this crowd?, posted on December 12, 2010 at 12:20:38
kerr Audiophile Posts: 4376 Location: Central Indiana Joined: November 10, 2003	Sure do. www.hydrogenaudio.org. Pick a thread, any thread.

Minime and Dr. Evil, posted on December 12, 2010 at 14:20:02
Jay Buridan Audiophile Posts: 10284 Location: Michigan Joined: January 21, 2004	and Goldmember. too. "Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. " ― W.C. Fields

RE: "Hi-rez digital (24/192 or greater) will eventually replace LPs", posted on December 12, 2010 at 14:35:00
Todd Krieger Audiophile Posts: 37333 Location: SW United States Joined: November 2, 2000	Until there is a way to cut down the RFI and latency issues in PC-based playback, I don't see a "server" type system in my audio future. The few times I've auditioned them, I've been less than impressed. Not to mention the time it takes to get running, with a decent selection of music.

I just confirmed with Parasound...., posted on December 12, 2010 at 16:16:52
AbeCollins Audiophile Posts: 46306 Location: USA Joined: June 22, 2001 Contributor Since: February 2, 2002	....that they did in fact OEM the tuner electronics to Magnum Dynalab for Magnum's DT-5. I sent an email to Parasound's marketing dept and they replied back.

Ok, that explains a lot..., posted on December 12, 2010 at 17:22:27
genungo	Actually, I had been thinking in a more generous fashion. At first I thought his jumpsuits were inspired by one of those old-fashioned wind-up monkey toys - you know, the ones that stand there and clap those little cymbals together real fast? But then I remembered that jumpsuit fashion has been given a boost a bit more recently, by the likes of Speed Racer and his secretive brother Racer X.

RE: Jerry, What CD Playback Done Right?, posted on December 12, 2010 at 23:27:55
rmilewsk Audiophile Posts: 534 Location: So. Cal. Joined: January 10, 2008	Where do I find prism products?

Kurt Denke, the president of Blue Jeans was the lawyer. , posted on December 13, 2010 at 05:59:32

driver8
Audiophile

Posts: 842
Location: Montreal
Joined: December 5, 2002

And here's the link for those not aware. Brilliant!

http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/blue-jeans-str

RE: what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?, posted on December 13, 2010 at 08:43:35
josh358 Industry Professional Posts: 12332 Joined: February 9, 2010	>That audiophiles continue to insist that poor recording quality implies bad sound and that good recording quality implies good sound.< ? We already discussed this at length, but I confess this assertion mystifies me. The recordings I call good are the ones that sound good! How else would I judge them?

Here's what our persistent friend here is getting at:, posted on December 13, 2010 at 08:53:29

carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006

HydrogenAudio DOES NOT accept measured differences as a proof of audible differences. So, correct statement would be not

"Measures the same - sounds the same"

, but rather

"Measures the same - sounds the same. Even if it measures different - it still sounds the same".

Please adjust your position accordingly.

Ah... of course you're correct., posted on December 13, 2010 at 09:11:37
kerr Audiophile Posts: 4376 Location: Central Indiana Joined: November 10, 2003	Hydrogenaudio... Measurements May Differ But The Sound Is The Same. Sure would make life simpler if I could buy into their science fiction. But these damned ears won't let me!

RE: "lunar cycles and the color of their socks" - never seen anyone claiming that., posted on December 13, 2010 at 09:12:06

josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12332
Joined: February 9, 2010

It's more like understanding how it works is enough to declare it voodoo.

There are mysteries in audio engineering, yes -- things that aren't understood or in which we haven't done enough research to have audibility thresholds. That IMO is one of the things that makes audio fun and challenging.

But there are also times when you know enough about how something works to know that sonic differences are almost certainly imagined.

RE: Where is this crowd?, posted on December 13, 2010 at 09:15:29
josh358 Industry Professional Posts: 12332 Joined: February 9, 2010	LOL. But from what I've seen of Hydrogen Audio, it's more like "ABX's the same, sounds the same."

The "crowd", posted on December 13, 2010 at 09:32:41
Presto Audiophile Posts: 5957 Location: Canada Joined: November 10, 2004	Only assembles in Subj. Vs. Obj. debates. The two sides immediately seem to go to extremes: "I know what I hear and I am above bias in all forms" versus "if it's not measurable or audible in a DBT it's imaginary". These are theoretical definitions of extremist viewpoints, nothing more. So perhaps the word "crowd" was not the best choice of words. Cheers, Presto

That the Magico Q5 is really a rebranded Bose (nt), posted on December 13, 2010 at 09:41:58
josh358 Industry Professional Posts: 12332 Joined: February 9, 2010	.

RE: what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?, posted on December 13, 2010 at 09:56:57

Don Till

"? We already discussed this at length, but I confess this assertion mystifies me. The recordings I call good are the ones that sound good! How else would I judge them?"

You mean the ones that sound good on your stereo are good recordings and the ones that sound bad on your stereo are bad recordings.

That's just a subjective take and as far as accurate reproduction goes is just wrong - period. How good or bad a recording sounds depends on the system reproducing it. The quality of the recording can be and should be judged independently of whether it sounds good or bad on any given system.

I said this before - live music can sound bad - a good recording of bad sounding live music is still a good recording even if it sounds bad. And a compressed and eq'd studio effort or lo fidelity live recording can and very often does sound very good in spite of the fact they may be deemed poor recordings.

Every half way decent stereo, including mediocre midfi equipment, is going to sound better with well made natural sounding recordings. Big deal, that's a no brainer. What's important is how good a system can reproduce music from less than ideal recordings. Your points from the other thread on bad recordings of natural or acoustical music are well taken and worthwhile but that's just a very small and particular sample of what can be judged as poor recording quality.

The only guarantee that a system is evolving accurately is if all recordings benefit as the system improves. The most accurate system will rarely ever be selected as the best sounding system on any recording or even any particular quality range or subset of recordings.

There's nothing wrong with trying to build a system that sounds the best on some recordings however it's very difficult to impossible to do it and end up with an accurate system.

And Josh for the sake of this conversation you haven't said anything that makes me believe your system is not accurate (and that's a first!). The fact you don't agree with me doesn't mean your system is not accurate but it does mean you are wrong.

RE: what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?, posted on December 13, 2010 at 10:17:01

josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12332
Joined: February 9, 2010

"The quality of the recording can be and should be judged independently of whether it sounds good or bad on any given system."

But this I think is a given. In practice, though, it isn't always easy to disambiguate the two. Taking for the moment the case of accurate recordings of acoustical performances (since recordings of electric pop are very subjective and all over the place), there's a chicken and egg situation that can't be entirely resolved. What we can do I think is

A) Rely on measurements. Not completely, since we don't yet know how to completely characterize the sound of the audio chain by measuring it, but to establish a baseline. For example, subject to a few engineering caveats,* a speaker should have a flat frequency response, and so should a microphone. This has been confirmed by extensive scientific research -- in forced-choice double blind tests, listeners prefer loudspeakers that have flat on-axis and smooth polar response.

*Which would include the polar pattern of microphones used in stereo recordings of concerts in large venues, phase cancellation of a stereo pair, and subjective balancing of loudspeakers with limited low or high frequency response

B) Rely on theory. It's fairly obvious that a recording that is compressed, for example, will sound less natural than one that isn't. If your goal is to reproduce acoustical music, it will sound less realistic.

C) Go for best possible reproduction first. I know you don't like that approach, but in my experience, you can't nurse the best possible sound out of a bad reproducer no matter what the quality of a recording. This isn't an abstraction -- take a superb reproducer (and there are several in the high end audio market, although a surprising number fall short) and put a relatively unprocessed recording on it, and it will take you a lot closer to the original performance than anything else.

When combined, I think these give us a pretty good feeling for what the good recordings are, and the good reproducers, although there are always troubling ambiguities, and the question of how and to what degree to tailor a system to lower quality recordings at the sacrifice of performance on the best ones (I know you don't agree, but it's no secret that poor recordings tend to be too bright and forward, and if you compensate for that by tilting the balance you'll compromise the good ones).

Yes, Kim Jong Il wears suits that Minime has outgrown, posted on December 13, 2010 at 10:26:21
Jay Buridan Audiophile Posts: 10284 Location: Michigan Joined: January 21, 2004	He needs to shave his head, though! "Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. " ― W.C. Fields

RE: what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?, posted on December 13, 2010 at 13:26:54

Don Till

First both characterizations you make about what I believe are incorrect.

To the point and in all honesty you've been ignoring(I don't think intentionally) the most important aspect of my position throughout both threads of this conversation. Your responses have been reasonable so I haven't pushed but in the clarity of your responses I have to go right to the heart of the matter - which is why we have a disagreement.

"Go for best possible reproduction first. I know you don't like that approach, but in my experience, you can't nurse the best possible sound out of a bad reproducer no matter what the quality of a recording. This isn't an abstraction -- take a superb reproducer (and there are several in the high end audio market, although a surprising number fall short) and put a relatively unprocessed recording on it, and it will take you a lot closer to the original performance than anything else."

You are wrong I do like that approach. However any decent mid fi stereo will take you closer to the original performance given an unprocessed recording.

The difference between the original performance and what you hear at playback is a result of a filter. That filter consists of the recording chain and the playback system including environment/listening space.

As audiophiles we can do nothing except adjust our systems to give us what we percieve as the best possible performance.

Unfortunately using unprocessed recordings to evaluate high fi performance has a number of obstacles.

1.) One needs to assemble a comprehensive test set of unprocessed recordings capable of being used to completely characterizing hifi performance.

2.) One needs to be capable of quantifying the results of listening to those recordings.

If someone is capable of doing #1 and #2 correctly all recordings will benefit from components chosen given that methodology even bright foward ones - remember you have to turn down the volume!

If someone is NOT capable of doing #1 and #2 correctly some recordings will benefit from components chosen given that methology but others will become even more alienated.

In fact I would suggest that doing #1 and #2 incorrectly WOULD lead to system inaccuracies that make the test recordings more preferable, more real and more live, than when they are played back on the accurate system.

"(I know you don't agree, but it's no secret that poor recordings tend to be too bright and forward, and if you compensate for that by tilting the balance you'll compromise the good ones).

But you are wrong I do agree. The point I am trying to make is that there is no guarantee that by using unprocessed recordings one is not being fooled by subtle (or not) colorations that tend to make such recordings sound more real or more live. Also if using such a methodology is alienating other recordings (again remember my volume adjustment comment) one is selecting components with colorations that favor such recordings.

In a nutshell - surely I can't disagree that rolling off high frequencies and limiting low end extension will reduce the goodness of many high quality recordings in order to facilitate reasonable playback of the world of recorded works. It seems like a small price to pay. On the other hand I find any coloration that increases the goodness of any recording at the same time making other recordings sound bad or unlistenable to be simply intolerable.

RE: what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?, posted on December 13, 2010 at 13:47:29

josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12332
Joined: February 9, 2010

>But you are wrong I do agree. The point I am trying to make is that there is no guarantee that by using unprocessed recordings one is not being fooled by subtle (or not) colorations that tend to make such recordings sound more real or more live. Also if using such a methodology is alienating other recordings (again remember my volume adjustment comment) one is selecting components with colorations that favor such recordings.<

In my experience, unprocessed recordings have less coloration. That's both a practical judgment -- they sound more natural when I listen to them -- and a matter of engineering: a relatively flat pair of microphones located at a distance from the performers produces a signal that is closer to the sound field at the listener's position than multiple microphones that are located unnaturally close to the instruments. And that's before cowboy producers start mucking with the EQ! It's almost impossible to make a convincing recording of a large ensemble with a multitude of microphones, though I've heard some pleasing ones.

One well-known example of this would be the screechy violin effect, which is a consequence of miking the string session up close and above: the violin is strongly directional at certain frequencies, and if you capture only the beam that's aimed straight up they sound screechy and hard.

>In a nutshell - surely I can't disagree that rolling off high frequencies and limiting low end extension will reduce the goodness of many high quality recordings in order to facilitate reasonable playback of the world of recorded works. It seems like a small price to pay. On the other hand I find any coloration that increases the goodness of any recording at the same time making other recordings sound bad or unlistenable to be simply intolerable.<

I certainly agree with that last. In general, I find that brightness or peakiness is much more offensive to the ear than recessive sound or sound with suckouts. For some reason, the bright sound is fatiguing.

As to rolling off the highs, well, I don't have an answer for that, but my personal inclination is to go for something that serves the main body of recordings, which, after all, are most of what I listen to. But I'd rather do it in EQ than in the speakers. There was a time when EQ circuits could be sonically deleterious, but once you've made the transition to all digital as I have you can use digital EQ, which can actually do a better job of correcting tonal balance than a speaker can and can be adjusted to accommodate various recordings and scenarios (stereo vs. multichannel, small hall vs. large one, live room vs. dead one, etc.).

RE: what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?, posted on December 13, 2010 at 16:26:53

Don Till

"As to rolling off the highs, well, I don't have an answer for that, but my personal inclination is to go for something that serves the main body of recordings, which, after all, are most of what I listen to. But I'd rather do it in EQ than in the speakers. There was a time when EQ circuits could be sonically deleterious, but once you've made the transition to all digital as I have you can use digital EQ, which can actually do a better job of correcting tonal balance than a speaker can and can be adjusted to accommodate various recordings and scenarios (stereo vs. multichannel, small hall vs. large one, live room vs. dead one, etc.)."

I don't have the skills or experience to accurately eq playback - surely some do and some don't but think they do. That's all good and tasty stuff but until the recording contains information on how these adjustments are supposed to be made all bets are off. With feedback we can compare the media content to what is arriving at the listeners ears and make adjustments as needed to correct for system (including room) influences. If we knew more about the content of each channel we could do more with it in fact we could do best fits for the actual playback environment and optimize the results to get the best performance based on x number of speakers and how they are configured in the playback space - all of that based on recorded content!

I think another benefit of digital is that the "quality" of playback gear, at least the non-digital parts, is going to become less important. Of course robustness will be key but such gear may sound dreadful in a non-digital system but put it into a feedback based system configured on the parameters of the recording and it will really shine.

But for now my main rigs are going to remain minamalist and mostly analog - save for CDP and tuners. I am currently importing CDs and LPs onto a harddrive and have been converting my portables and car stereos to source from the iPod and we (my wife and I) are going to put in a new video system in the living room as part of our home remodelling. That system is likely to contain a dedicated music server so I will have a purely digital based system soon!

But until the format gives us more information I'm going to let the pros adjust the eq's and let myself continue to make adjustment by careful selection of gear.

RE: what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?, posted on December 13, 2010 at 16:37:48

josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12332
Joined: February 9, 2010

Yeah, it's difficult to adjust EQ on a recording by recording basis. There's a lot to be said for old fashioned tone controls, which may have been coarse in their action but were at least able to render some recordings listenable by correcting massively out-of-kilter balance. As things stand, I use the (less than ideal) graphical equalizer in Foobar 2000 to make recordings that are truly ghastly listenable. Often this means pulling down the violin screech range, which is easily done once you know the frequency range that's affected. But in the future, I'd like to see two capabilities: per recording EQ settings that are remembered or store in the file like settings in Replay Gain, and deconvolution, the technique that was used to remove the horn resonances from the Caruso recordings -- essentially comparing the tonal balance of a recording to a better recording of the same work and inferring the response abnormalities from it. Perhaps some day it will be possible to analyze automatically a recording on the basis of the instrumentation, and compare that to a model of how such a recording should sound.

RE: what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?, posted on December 13, 2010 at 17:53:16

Don Till

"Perhaps some day it will be possible to analyze automatically a recording on the basis of the instrumentation, and compare that to a model of how such a recording should sound."

That's asking alot but I don't think it's out of the range of possibilities. At this point I'm thinking venue or spatial information could be much better served by digital. Using transfer functions one could store information that can be used to map venue, seating and microphone information into the playback environment. Given a recording from a venue one could chose his desired seating position and expect a reasonable sonic representation of what it actually sounds like in the selected listening seat. Instead of just left/right channel information raw microphone feeds could be included as well. The possibilities of digital and beyond stereo are endless.

The natural recordings clearly can benefit but IMO these kinds of things really open up a new realm for studio recordings. Not to mention a whole variety of configurability and personalization for the end user.

RE: what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?, posted on December 13, 2010 at 18:12:07

josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12332
Joined: February 9, 2010

I remember seeing that proposed -- predicted, actually -- back in the 70's. The essential idea being that a recording would contain a mathematical model of the hall. The technology now exists to do it, a couple of Japanese companies have made acoustical models of major concert halls. You could as you imply begin with two microphone stereo, and "fill in" the sound from the rest of the hall at the time of reproduction. (Something like that is already being done at a primitive level with surround releases that use synthesized reverberation. This I think can offer superior results insofar as the directionality of cardioid microphones makes it difficult to isolate the reverberant from the direct sound when making a recording. It's a case in which purist recording techniques are actually inferior.) Or as you also point out, you could begin with a multitrack recording and do a more complete reconstruction of the hall acoustics.

Ideally, I think, you'd want to use an array to accurately reconstruct the wavefront of the image coming from the front; surround sound reproduction is I think less demanding, in the case of music reproduction, anyway (movie and game effects are a different matter). As in the stereo case, the reproducing array could be fed with an array of microphones, or a synthesized sound field generated from a multitrack recording. One fellow made a clever proposal to use the directionality of the front array to generate reflections in the other five surfaces, obviating the need for surround speakers and perhaps allowing a more accurate reconstruction.

RE: what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?, posted on December 14, 2010 at 08:33:51

Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007

"But in the future, I'd like to see two capabilities: per recording EQ settings that are remembered or store in the file like settings in Replay Gain, and deconvolution, the technique that was used to remove the horn resonances from the Caruso recordings -- essentially comparing the tonal balance of a recording to a better recording of the same work and inferring the response abnormalities from it. Perhaps some day it will be possible to analyze automatically a recording on the basis of the instrumentation, and compare that to a model of how such a recording should sound."

This type of EQ is what Andrew Rose claims to be using for his historical recordings.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

Pristine Audio XR

RE: what is your most shocking wikileakesque revelations about the audio industry in the last 3 years?, posted on December 14, 2010 at 15:45:52
josh358 Industry Professional Posts: 12332 Joined: February 9, 2010	That is brilliant stuff! I'm having a hard time tearing myself away.

RE: Or, Parasound could have had MD make its tuner for it..., posted on December 14, 2010 at 17:45:25
The Duke Audiophile Posts: 536 Location: New Jersey Joined: March 6, 2001	What year Atlas Peak cabernet, John?

RE: I completely forgot about Vandersteen and apologize., posted on December 15, 2010 at 08:13:14
tnelson	Forgings. China

And then there's Rockport, posted on December 15, 2010 at 10:42:37
jfz Audiophile Posts: 551 Joined: July 21, 2004	Not only made in the U.S, but made in little old New England : )

RE: And then there's Rockport, posted on December 16, 2010 at 22:08:45
Charles Hansen Manufacturer Posts: 6984 Joined: August 1, 2001	I think it is safe to say that Rockport safely falls within the 2% of all speakers made that are not made in China. I doubt their output is more than fifty pairs per year. Maybe a hundred with a good tailwind.

That many audiophiles still haven't fiqured out how to get their systems to sound great with CDs, posted on December 16, 2010 at 23:21:17

haugenmarka@hotmail.com
Audiophile

Posts: 831
Location: Denver Colorado
Joined: January 7, 2002

i have heard hundreds of systems, yet no matter what, i have never heard one that sounds "great with CDs", IMO the medium is seriously flawed. However i know that i am much more sensitive to the flaws of digital and CDs than most (99%).

However it makes no sense to "buy an expensive turntable and put a cheap cartridge on it", afterall its the cartride that makes the biggest difference, as that is where the sound starts. IMO the opposite makes more sense.

Give me analog or give me silence!

RE: History will teach us something, posted on December 17, 2010 at 00:53:18

haugenmarka@hotmail.com
Audiophile

Posts: 831
Location: Denver Colorado
Joined: January 7, 2002

I agree that 24/192 on a PC music server wins hands down over CD players. The CD is without doubt on borrowed time now, as are most any physical audio formats (LP is a specialized & collectors nitch of which the majority of sales are used). However IMO there is a very large gap between 192 and LP. I have heard in a recording studio 2.3 million sampling rate, and even to my analog ears, this wins hand down compared to LP, so yes there is a point where digital equals and surpasses LP, but we have a long ways to go, my guess is something over half a million (768?) sampling rate will be required to equal quality LP playback. I also agree that a PC based music server has elimiated many of the mechanical problems of CD/SACD/DVD players, and thus combined with downloading, will be the wave of the future even in high quality audio (it already is for std audio today the dreaded MP3).
Give me analog or give me silence!

RE: That many audiophiles still haven't fiqured out how to get their systems to sound great with CDs, posted on December 17, 2010 at 11:01:41

Don Till

"However it makes no sense to "buy an expensive turntable and put a cheap cartridge on it", afterall its the cartride that makes the biggest difference, as that is where the sound starts. IMO the opposite makes more sense."

I agree but to get most of what you are paying for you'll want to have a nice TT and arm to go along with that costly cartridge.

"i have heard hundreds of systems, yet no matter what, i have never heard one that sounds "great with CDs", IMO the medium is seriously flawed. However i know that i am much more sensitive to the flaws of digital and CDs than most (99%)."

Let's be real - vinyl is seriously flawed. I'm a big time vinyl fan who prefers vinyl but I'm not fooling myself here. I was at a shop listening to a top flight system playing back a CD of an old blues recording - I was really impressed. Some guy walks in and says "digital" can I hear some vinyl - the owner put some vinyl on a P5 with a 10x4 cartridge through a Creek phono section. The quality of the reproduction dropped 3 notches, becoming essentially an undefined blurry pile of murk and the guys say "Ah the warmth and body of vinyl don't you love it?"

No I don't - a regular record on a decent TT, with a mediocre cartridge, through a not so good phono section is going to sound not so good no matter how you slice the cheese. On a good system even a good quality walkman is going to sound better than a not so well matched mid range or expensive vinyl system. Sorry.

I read posts like yours and wonder if CDs can only sound "great" if only somehow we could add the distortions and colorations particular to vinyl.

distortions, posted on December 17, 2010 at 16:43:02

haugenmarka@hotmail.com
Audiophile

Posts: 831
Location: Denver Colorado
Joined: January 7, 2002

i agree, ideally you want both a good/great TT and cartridge but if funds are limited the cartridge makes the bigger difference. IMO most people put too much into the TT part.

hey i will be the first to admit that vinyl has many flaws, in addition to many disadvantages, thing is these flaws are much easier to live with (for me), and overall the analog/vinyl medium sounds much more like music. when i listen to vinyl i can forget that i am listening to a recording and just concentrate on the music, but this just does not happen for me with digital, somehow it is less musical. and no it has nothing to do with being "warm", having distortions, colorations, pops, clicks, old times, whatever. I am not sure technically what it is, i have been dwelling on this for more than a decade now, wish i knew, but the only thing that i can come up with is, it must be the continous un-interrupted flow of the sound because there is no sampling rate, combined with there not being a sudden high freq "wall" cutoff. To me its the music that matters most, and i would much prefer a low end LP playback to a top end digital.

note the "IMO", i understand this does not apply to everyone else, and i am very aware that most others (including audiophiles) are fine with digital sound. so "lets be real", everyone is different, right?

as i said; "However i know that i am much more sensitive to the flaws of digital and CDs than most (99%)."

Give me analog or give me silence!

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