There is ALWAYS trade-off and at certain point you have to prioritize.
Harder is to decide from the start how much you need this and how much you need that. Just like choosing a tiny-watt system (small class-A amp and efficient speaker) OR going with the big guy system, each have their own rules of the game and you have to be able to see everything from the get-go.
The most important question that I have tried to answer for years is "What factors are most important for music enjoyment?". The most important is, I would not call it "accuracy" nor "realness". But realness is probably more important than accuracy. Still, "enjoyment" is number one
To achieve ACCURACY, one might do technical things that sacrifice REALNESS and ENJOYMENT. REALNESS can also take away ENJOYMENT. What I want is ENJOYMENT with maximum achievable ACCURACY (and realness).
One rule is that I will avoid fatiguing sound because enjoyment and fatigue do not go hand in hand. From speaker point it is easy to understand what to avoid (money is the limit). From the electronics point, I will say no for class-B amplifiers (worse is class-D) but unfortunately it is hard to enjoy the music when the electricity bill is high
so I'm at a crossroad here.
Well for example if you are editing a photo and you want to make prints. Unless your monitor is calibrated what you see is NOT what you will get. No one can setup a monitor without some sort of calibration system.
likewise no one can set up a professional recording studio by ear...
You appear to be promoting the idea that some music lovers can only enjoy music which they have tailored to their own taste. So, for example, they like listening to oboe music but don't like listening to oboes so they filter or distort the signal so the sound from their speakers does not sound like a real oboe but (to them) better than a real oboe. This is fine, provided they don't then pretend that their 'oboe' is somehow more like a real oboe than a real oboe is.Jay said:
By all means pursue audio enjoyment, but don't confuse it with hi-fi.
Any design work that involves colour require the correct monitor set up, you would be surprised if you set upo your monitors using a device such as those from Spyder or Colormunki. I just wish you could use them directly on TVs with the same ease you can on monitors.
I have all my monitors calibrated, both at work and at home. Mainly for my photos, but also when doing graphical work where specific colours are required.
Its the difference between getting it right and having it spot or not. I also use ICC profiles for my printer, one for each type of paper I use.
There is numerous info regarding colour calibration, most (if not all) professionals and many amateurs will calibrate their devices, the eye cannot be trusted for a variety of reasons, such as we have in built white balance, our red/green vision has a huge overlap and blue causes some problems...
http://www.spectracal.com/Documents/Calibrating-Color-Critical-Computer-Monitors.pdf
I have all my monitors calibrated, both at work and at home. Mainly for my photos, but also when doing graphical work where specific colours are required.
Its the difference between getting it right and having it spot or not. I also use ICC profiles for my printer, one for each type of paper I use.
There is numerous info regarding colour calibration, most (if not all) professionals and many amateurs will calibrate their devices, the eye cannot be trusted for a variety of reasons, such as we have in built white balance, our red/green vision has a huge overlap and blue causes some problems...
http://www.spectracal.com/Documents/Calibrating-Color-Critical-Computer-Monitors.pdf
I don't bother with a DMM. I just touch the HT+ rail and see how far across the room it throws me (and of course, I don't need to use a measuring tape for that, either). For measuring capacitance I just hold the cap in one hand and use a standard cap in the other hand; the weight ratio is a good enough guide. Inductance is simple too: just see how wiggly the wire is. Resistance is a bit more tricky but carefully listening to the 'ping' it makes when it hits the floor is helpful; curiously, I find many resistors do not obey Ohm's Law as the voltages I measure are not consistent with what flat-earth engineering theorists tell me I should see. There are obviously higher-order effects going on which mere engineers deny.
I can't understand these people who spend a fortune on test equipment.
I can't understand these people who spend a fortune on test equipment.
Last edited:
No you cannot always do something like that. If you make oboe to sound like something else, you may turn piano (which you like) to sound like trumpet.
But if you like vocal, and don't like "fast" music or artificial bass, there are many things you can do to suit that needs. Tube amp may be. If you understand (the concept) that there is always trade-off, you cannot say that it is wrong. There is always a way to tailor the system to your needs.
There's nothing extra-ordinary with the common concept of "hi-fi". If real music is full of joy and the sound system makes it fatiguing, no matter how "hi-fi" it is, it is not hi-fi by other standard, because it is not the same.
Fidelity...
the degree of exactness with which something is copied or reproduced.
Be it sound or colour
Yes, but hi-fi is often measured as THD 1KHz of sinusoidal signal into resistive load of 8 Ohm.
When the amplifier is connected to a speaker, the main variables that determine distortion (out of the speaker) can completely different (than the one that determine distortion out of the amplifier).
In simple word, we measure the wrong thing. So, be flexible, don't be rigid with this hi-fi thing...
The reduction of sensitivity to small differences with increasing time between presentations. Or were the goalposts moved again without explicitly saying so?
That seems to be somehow misguided.
True high-fidelity evaluated based on physics would mean to be able to recreated the original soundfield.
Up to now only to approaches exist, that at least approximately are able to do that. One is binaural recording (for maximum approximation realized with the listeners torso and ear dummy) and the other is the wavefield synthesis.
Everything else, restricted to a small number of discrete channels, represents only a gross divergence from the original soundfield.
At that point only human listeners can tell if they accept the created illusion and feel a sense of reality (i.e. high-fidelity).
I think that is what von Recklinghausen meant with his rule...
No, what it is is absolutely incorrect. In logic, this is referred to as a "strawman."
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman
Does that website like something extra-ordinary for you? It is big only when you cannot see something bigger. In Psychology, you know it only when you invent/experience it. If you know it after anyone telling you or writing it for you, you don't know anything.
Fallacy of a fallacy? I don't know how to word it, as the words is not important at all.
Quite astounding gibberish there. Can you not accept that, for all the wonderful things man has created (and some pretty awful things he really shouldn't have) that the human mind is easily fooled and there are some strong anthropological reasons why it had to be that way to get us to where we are?
The ANSI standard is a phonetically balanced word list used in a carrier sentence.
I used to do the ANSI test, but since STI test equipment is now common I use that. At a minute or so per test doing a stadium on 40 foot test points takes quite a bit of time!
But it used to be fun to get a panel, teach them what was expected and drop out the ones who flunked the warm ups.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.