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In Reply to: What does one do when everything you believed in turns out to be false? posted by nightdoggy on February 20, 2007 at 11:59:00:
Its called live and unamplified music. When you become really familiar with this then the direction is clear. The recordings must also be of a certain standard or all evaluations are useless. Then using your ears as a guide to get you close to the sound of the real thing (again recording permitting) you will go in the right direction. You CANNOT judge the correctness of a system with compressed and manipulated studio music. It was never meant to sound like the real thing anyway.Of course there is also the possibility that you would simply have no idea what to listen for even if you were exposed to frequent live music. Like everything else in life, being able to translate what one hears live into what one hears at home is a talent and some are better at it than others. Realizing which deficiencies are system related and which are the limitations of the recordings is another skill that needs to be acquired. If you realize you have no talent for putting together a great sounding system then find someone who can help you and rely on their superior taste (like hiring an interior decorator to give you a tasteful design that you are not capable of doing yourself).
In this case the best advice I can give you is that if you hear a system that you know deep down is doing the right things then simply copy that system and get on with enjoying music. A friend of mine did nearly the same thing when he heard my system. He bought the same speakers and amps and now he is happy with his system. That simple for him (it took me a while and the adoption of the above mentioned concept to get the great sound I am getting now).
If you listen to ONLY rock/pop or electronic music then there is no absolute standard and your tastes might change from week to week. I have found though that when a system is really correct for acoustic music it also will be satisfying with electrified and compressed music (as long as the recording is not rubbish).
My advice regading this kind of music, don't spend very much money as the sound will not get dramatically better. Then find another way to spend your money. With acoustic music the sky is the limit on improvement so the investment can be worthwhile.
Follow Ups:
.......That is the best post of yours I have ever read and I agree just about 100% with everything you wrote.Great advice.
Smile
Sox
Morricab viewpoint is very popular one amongst audiophiles, but one that is wrong. To use his specific words,"I have found though that when a system is really correct for acoustic music it also will be satisfying with electrified and compressed music (as long as the recording is not rubbish). "
This implicitly presupposes that the rendition of acoustic music cannot enhanced by subtle processing, which of course is wrong, it can and when this occurs the listener may mistakenly attribute this to system quality. Would the same process necessarily benefit another music genre such as rock or garage music? No, and in a scenario when this occurs, the recording rather than the system takes the rap. This is one of the areas where measurements can prove very useful but most audiophiles that subscribe to the opinion shared by yourself and morricab also give short shrift to measurements, but they are quick to blame recording engineers for any perceived shortcoming in recordings, when the real probably is probably closer to home.
Music making the painting, recording it the photograph
.......WHY does this comment \\\"I have found though that when a system is really correct for acoustic music it also will be satisfying with electrified and compressed music (as long as the recording is not rubbish). "/// predispose acoustic music can’t be enhanced using subtle processing? (Whatever subtle processing is)Are you suggesting that acoustic music can only sound correct if it has been subjected to “subtle processing”? (if so, I disagree)
IMHO if acoustical music sounds superb on an audio system then the system will most likely sound superb with any type of music played up to the limits of the recordings played.
However, at the end of the day, the only correct sound for an individual is the sound the individual most likes. This “sound”, from the individual’s perspective, can be irrelevant to any reference given by someone else.
Smile
Sox
"Whatever subtle processing is"
equalisation and other forms of signal processing."Are you suggesting that acoustic music can only sound correct if it has been subjected to “subtle processing”?"
No, however I am suggesting that the effects of signal processing are not consistent across all music programs and its presence may enhance a music program in this case acoustic music to the detriment of another. Therefore the superb playback of acoustic music on a given system is not necessarily indicate of system quality, there may be some symphathetic colorations, hence the word, subtle and the value of measurements.
"IMHO if acoustical music sounds superb on an audio system then the system will most likely sound superb with any type of music played up to the limits of the recordings played. "
I do not agree with this sentiment, a modified frequency response curve e.g. as a result of a high output impedance amplifier or an factory-equalised speaker, may well favour acoustic music and disadvantage other music programs. As I said earlier this is where measurements become invaluable.
Music making the painting, recording it the photograph
"This implicitly presupposes that the rendition of acoustic music cannot enhanced by subtle processing, which of course is wrong, it can and when this occurs the listener may mistakenly attribute this to system quality. Would the same process necessarily benefit another music genre such as rock or garage music? No, and in a scenario when this occurs, the recording rather than the system takes the rap."Thanks for making my point for me, which is that with rock or garage music you can't tell if it is the recording that is making the system sound bad or the system that is making the recording sound bad. There is no point of reference to a real event because it was created in a studio and no one has any idea about what the right sound should be.
With unamplified music it is easier to distinguish these things because there is a real reference but as I said it takes practice and expertise to separate the two effects. If a classical recording is known to be of good quality then it is a valid reference to evaluate a system. Self-made recordings, if done with care, can make great references. You also know, if you have a good ear, when it sounds right relative to the real thing. It is not a perfect reference but it is the best we have.
In science, I have the luxury of relying strictly on objective measurements for quantitative results; however, for qualitative results like determining the structure of an unknown molecule, it requires not only data but intuition and deep understanding to solve the puzzle. I am using the same data but in different ways.
Correlating subjective listening to objective results is the same way, it requires someone with deep understanding to make the connection about which measurements result in data with a high correlation. Clearly most of the standard measurements don't achieve a high correlation coefficient. I do not short shrift the measurements, I am a man of science and make my living from making measurements but I am also sure that my measurements have a high correlation with what I want to show. I can prove this with hard numbers. I am sure that standard audio measurements do not correlate well with listening so I don't give them much respect.
This is why studies by Cheever, Otala, Crowhurst, and Boyk are interesting to me. These men admit the regular measurements have little real information and are striving to come up with ways to make better correlations between subjective and objective.
"Thanks for making my point for me...."I suggest you understand the text before making comments.
"This implicitly presupposes that the rendition of acoustic music cannot enhanced by subtle processing, which of course is wrong, it can and when this occurs the listener may mistakenly attribute this to system quality"
In plain english, acoustic music MAY be enhanced by subtle processing, afterall the point of reference of most listeners is not the actual event but a mental memory of what they THINK the music program would sound like, however such processing is a form of distortion which may work against other types of music, hence the benefit of measurements as yardstick for measuring actual system performance.
Music making the painting, recording it the photograph
You said "This implicitly presupposes that the rendition of acoustic music cannot enhanced by subtle processing"and I didn't imply this at all. Plus, implicitly presupposes, is not the same as "MAY be"...I suggest you learn to use your mother tongue a bit better before you post (if it is not your mother tongue then this explains a lot).
Presuppose: 1 : to suppose beforehand
2 : to require as an antecedent in logic or factSo it means basically assumes. I did not assume anything implicitly or explicitly. I guess you were simply trying to sound well educated but you could at least say what you really mean.
And furthermore, if the system is "subltly enhancing" acoustic music then this should also be audible with rock music and then you could figure out its the system not the recording. The problem is that with rock music it is much more difficult know if its doing something funny or not and with acoustic music you have a better chance to tell this...if you know what to listen for in the first place.
"however such processing is a form of distortion which may work against other types of music, hence the benefit of measurements as yardstick for measuring actual system performance"
Please give an example of "subtle processing" that would make acoustic music sound more realistic? IMO, there is no such thing and all distortion will be a degradation as long as its audible distortion. If its inaudible distortion, well, its inaudible.
Metrics are only useful if they are correlated to something. It has been shown that most measurements are not usefully correlated to the event of listening. Therefore, in the absence of useful metrics one needs as good a reference as possible, ie. well recorded acoustic music. I readily admit there are faults to this process, number one being the ability of the listener to translate what they hear live to what they get at home. HOwever; it is mine and many others experiences that this works better than marginally usefull metrics. Is it subject to distortion? Of course and I never said otherwise. Is it better than using rock music? Absolutely! Is it better than simply picking a speaker with flat FR and an amp with low THD? Most definitely. And when it sounds right with acoustic music then the chances are high that it will still rock the house down with your favorite rock stars.
My point is simply that this is a better way to do it than looking at measurements and it is better than taking your favorite rock stars for demoing gear. It requires work (like going to live unamplified concerts frequently or making ones own recordings) but once you have it, you have it. If you don't have the time, patience, talent or whatever to go this route and still want great sound with all well recorded music then I said maybe its best to find someone who can do it for you.
Just trying to do my part...
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