John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

[abraxalito]

Originally Posted by fas42

A simple word that expresses it perfectly is 'fussy'. Be fussy, fussy, fussy, over and over again; any sloppiness, anywhere, will be penalised with sound well less than the best.

Only those anal enough to care will get the best. 'The price of freedom (from crap sound) is eternal vigilance'.

[jan.didden]

Originally Posted by 1audio

I was talking to someone who has worked with research audiologists looking at musicians with hearing loss (Most, even classical). The brain scans suggest that they can reconstruct the missing parts pretty accurately even if the stimulus (serious hearing loss) is not there. I will try to get more details on this since its very interesting stuff

Indeed very interesting stuff, but also stuff that has been researched ad infinitum. Seemingly unrelated issues like this 'filling in' of sound, expectation bias, changes in remembered events with circumstances, or, even more weird, phantom limb perceptions, all come back to one significant point: the brain is a prediction machine. Say a word and it completes the sentence, so to speak.

For 'us', there's a difference between, say, a 'real' chair in front of us and a chair remembered from yesterday. For the brain, it's all 'inside your head'. For the brain, there is no difference between reality and what is made up, remembered or imagined inside it.
But because we insist on this imaginary (pun intended) difference we get mad when someone suggests we imagined something. On the contrary, in a very real sense it's ALL imagined

jan

[abraxalito]

Originally Posted by janneman

the brain is a prediction machine. Say a word and it completes the sentence, so to speak.

Jan - you're sounding more and more like Jeff Hawkins. Been reading his 'On Intelligence' by any chance?

[RNMarsh]

Originally Posted by abraxalito

I can take a guess. Pros use balanced cables, so CM noise is much less of an issue than for audiophiles. Also perhaps the studio has some industrial grade power line conditioning and doesn't run its air-conditioning, refrigerator, PCs and flat panel displays etc. on the same spur as all the audio kit?

I do all those things. It sounds better but not as real as live in my room. Any other ideas?

[sofaspud]

Jan, I don't disagree with your post, but I do find, "For the brain, there is no difference between reality and what is made up, remembered or imagined inside it" to be a bit overstated. In other words, the audio problem as it stands exists precisely because the brain can discern real vs reproduced.
That the brain "involuntarily" completes the missing puzzle pieces is IMO a good sign in regards to audio reproduction. It means progress is being made. And as a layman I tend to agree that the stereo paradigm needs further research. Leading to fewer missing pieces to fill in. Digital is capable of achieving that goal.

[RNMarsh]

Originally Posted by PMA

Exactly. And then someone wonders that a horn sounds different in his living room

The question is how to get the repro sound in the home to be a lot closer to 'real' music played in the home with real musical instruments? Why is there such a big gap? Care to solve that mystery?

[jan.didden]

Originally Posted by fas42

In my experience it's quite straightforward: first of all, music replay in the home is never loud enough, and secondly treble is usually mangled to some degree.

The other thing is that music in the home is generally much more homogenous and direct than in a concert hall. Someone once remarked (I think it was Floyd Toole) that a concert hall is one giant comb filter, what with its myriad reflections. With most of our efforts to control dispersion and reflections in our rooms we are in fact going away more and more from the life sound 'picture'.

jan

[jcx]

but we really don't want the sound of an orchestra playing in our living room - we want to hear what they sound like at a good seat in a great hall – while sitting in our living room

[PMA]

Richard, I think we should split the question in two issues:

1) we have read here several complaints on aggressive sounding home system at high volume. This is IMO completely resolvable and depends on circuit topology, parts used, EMI suppression, power supplies etc. - i.e. on skills of each of us.

2) re-creation of original sound field in home acoustic conditions. This is IMO completely impossible by mike-amp-recording-replay-amp-speaker systems, regardless number of sound channels used.

[PMA]

Originally Posted by jcx

but we really don't want the sound of an orchestra playing in our living room - we want to hear what they sound like at a good seat in a great hall – while sitting in our living room

This exactly is impossible.