As Richard just said here we go again. A few pages back someone said that people who care about the sound of their audio systems are dinosaurs and that is a very limited view of things to me anyway. If you go and look at a good business analysis of the industry you will see that audio is still a billion dollar business. There are still plenty of people buying audio gear.
This is where things get tricky. So much audio these days is cell phones, portable music players and even things like televisions. Now most of that is junk, we all seem to accept that our televisions are not going to come from the factory with great acoustics, nor do you expect a $3 in ear headphone to sound great but that is the reference for so many these days.
Now I have seen it more than once when I have turned on my own speakers and my own kids who all had cell phones and Ipods heard music on something different for the fist time. No education needed, the sound spoke for itself and they all commented they never heard music sound so good. I believe that they will never look at music the same after that, they just don't have the disposable income to buy audiophile priced equipment and there are so few places to even go and hear a decent commercial system these days. The days of going into Pacific Stereo or Beverly Stereo and being able to listen to multiple speakers and electronics is so rare today.
So the question becomes how do you market to today's populations so they again care about the music. I realize one of the problems is that Pop music is the prevailing media and what it is really supposed to sound like many times is a mystery. I really don't think we are the last generation, the almost extinct generation who will care about sound quality, that just seems more insane than the arguments about blind testing You do need to hear great sound to understand what is possible but once you do it is hard to un-know.
This is where things get tricky. So much audio these days is cell phones, portable music players and even things like televisions. Now most of that is junk, we all seem to accept that our televisions are not going to come from the factory with great acoustics, nor do you expect a $3 in ear headphone to sound great but that is the reference for so many these days.
Now I have seen it more than once when I have turned on my own speakers and my own kids who all had cell phones and Ipods heard music on something different for the fist time. No education needed, the sound spoke for itself and they all commented they never heard music sound so good. I believe that they will never look at music the same after that, they just don't have the disposable income to buy audiophile priced equipment and there are so few places to even go and hear a decent commercial system these days. The days of going into Pacific Stereo or Beverly Stereo and being able to listen to multiple speakers and electronics is so rare today.
So the question becomes how do you market to today's populations so they again care about the music. I realize one of the problems is that Pop music is the prevailing media and what it is really supposed to sound like many times is a mystery. I really don't think we are the last generation, the almost extinct generation who will care about sound quality, that just seems more insane than the arguments about blind testing You do need to hear great sound to understand what is possible but once you do it is hard to un-know.
They do care about the music. When I go to concerts of musicians doing interesting and original stuff, there's no shortage of attendees.
Most pop is crap, but it was ever thus.
i think the youth of today listen to more music than my generation did. At least one of my daughters has been to more gigs by 16 than I did. they listen to music for hours a day and ipods are better than walkmans were in the early 80s. ok more is on headphones than speakers, but there are some amazingly good headphones out there.
It's a great time to love music.
It's a great time to love music.
The intriguing thing, even though one may find that the song writing invention in a particular pop track may be "crap", is that the textures and the sound ideas in these recordings are still very interesting, and satisfying to listen to - I have fairly recently listened to a few compilation albums of current stuff - "Greatest Hits of 2012!!" type of thing - thinking it would be a dead loss ... but was pleasantly surprised to find that each track has some qualities in the tonal aspects, and arrangements, that made them worthwhile listening to closely.
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What do you find remarkable there? Top-shelf violinists tried a bunch of violins and picked their favourites, and the Strads were generally not in the top rank. I have been hearing the same from string players for 40 years, that some Strads are truly extraordinary but most are not, and well-made modern instruments are as good as or better than most (not all) old instruments. This is old news.
The interesting part is that the players clearly identified their preferred instruments, and did so repeatably without visual or other references (though of course the "feel" of an instrument is a big part of a musician's evaluation, perhaps even more than "sound"). So this clearly demonstrates that "blind" testing allows real differences to be detected, while filtering out bias based on name-brand preference. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Now, John, having demonstrated so clearly that audible differences are discernible in blind tests, what are we to make of sighted (or as you so disingenuously call "open") tests where differences are detected, but which disappear in blind testing? You have proved to my satisfaction that blind testing can reliably distinguish between different high-quality violins. How do you explain sighted tests whose results cannot be replicated under blind conditions?
Actually, that's a half truth, but not an outright lie. In the early 90ies, Philips treated a group of us to a demo of what is their refernce quality, made by them, of course. And truth be told, that was the next best thing after live sound I have ever heard by anyone. Two problems with it, making it a half truth: one, the price was pure astronomy, and two, that playsback system was on sale, but for reasons unexplained only in Japan.
But in terms of quality sound, it was a dream come true, even knowing that they used selected material only. The drive was from the DAC via balanced lines to the active speakers. They didn't say, but I suspect there were Motional Feedback units like I have never seen on sale.
Thus, their viewpoint was arguable. The sound was stupendous, leaves you without breath, but it was not available to the general public, which of course could buy their CD players which while good, were nowhere near that quality of sound (or price point, for that matter).
Everything everyone initially knew about the CD format was told them by Philips, but Philips never told them everything they knew about it.
Dejan, it's the old story - pull out all the stops, to prove the point - and then leave it to crass commercialism to follow through with an acceptable lesser quality, at decent prices ... which of course never happens, 
. Interesting that the engineers back then knew what it took, but the knowledge wasn't passed down the chain ...
. Interesting that the engineers back then knew what it took, but the knowledge wasn't passed down the chain ...
I would stop maligning CD.
It is a damn fine medium for playback.
Despite all the focus on creating ultra low noise RIAA equalizers (I am also guilty), once the stylus hits the groove, the S/N is about 60 dB. If you are lucky and your LP is new. CD is at least 30 dB better, and in most cases 40 dB.
LP adherents seem to forget that one of the great apeals of CD, and any digital format for that matter, is convenience and repeatable performance. No dicking around with all sorts of mechanical interfaces etc. and, there is no wear out, or the inevitable crackles, ticks and pops.
As to sound quality, I have quite a few CD's that are absolutely magnificent. 3D sound staging to die for, wonderful fluid bass and sweet, airey mids and top end. I also have some real dogs. The nasty's are in the recording - not the format.
Does that mean I don't like analog? No, I do. But CD is awesome.
It is a damn fine medium for playback.
Despite all the focus on creating ultra low noise RIAA equalizers (I am also guilty), once the stylus hits the groove, the S/N is about 60 dB. If you are lucky and your LP is new. CD is at least 30 dB better, and in most cases 40 dB.
LP adherents seem to forget that one of the great apeals of CD, and any digital format for that matter, is convenience and repeatable performance. No dicking around with all sorts of mechanical interfaces etc. and, there is no wear out, or the inevitable crackles, ticks and pops.
As to sound quality, I have quite a few CD's that are absolutely magnificent. 3D sound staging to die for, wonderful fluid bass and sweet, airey mids and top end. I also have some real dogs. The nasty's are in the recording - not the format.
Does that mean I don't like analog? No, I do. But CD is awesome.
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Actually, for Philips there is an explanation. Like Sony before them, they didn't really know what to do with Marantz. Philips revived Marantz from ashes using the CD technology, if you remember, 1988-1998 Marantz was considered to be the best choice in the mid price category, and had some serious machines in the high price category as well. Thus, it is understandable why Philips didn't want to compete with itself (they owned Marantz in those days), but what remains unexplained is why didn't they pass on their top of the line products under the guise of Marantz. In those days, the trade name Marantz could easily whitewash the price which would not have passed under the Philips name simply because the public regarded Philips as a manufacturer of fridges, stoves and TV sets, not even audio in general. Few knew that Philips was also into nuclear power plant business and medical electronics.
That's the really odd thing about Philips. They were almost always late for the party, but when they did come, they usually did better to much better than their competition, For example, their Brilliance series of PC monitors was like 3-4 years late, but when it did come, it was better than the competition in their price range by a reasonabe margin.
They seem sort of ambivalent to their own success and engineering prowess.
That's the really odd thing about Philips. They were almost always late for the party, but when they did come, they usually did better to much better than their competition, For example, their Brilliance series of PC monitors was like 3-4 years late, but when it did come, it was better than the competition in their price range by a reasonabe margin.
They seem sort of ambivalent to their own success and engineering prowess.
Andrew, the story of LP vs. CD is to me much the same as the story between tube and SS.
You had people who heavily invested into their LP replay and were not happy with a small silver disc making their investment obsolete. They recognized the inevitability of a standards change.
On the other hand, the industry which was sliding down overall was reluctant to invest heavily into the new medium, which to them was simply a source of income. They soon disocovered that they could get away with the profits without the R&D costs so they went that way. Just look at the fate of truly great CD mechanisms - they had a life which was brief because they were expensive, and then they were reduced in quality and price to the point of ridiculous, while high quality drives were practically abandoned.
I think that CD is as good as any other digital media. It's the noise or resolution that defines the limit and the CD is better than any speaker in that respect.
So for me the higher resolution formats is just another digital format that does the same, just with even more problems ground loops and computer noise added.
What sets vinyl playback apart from digital is not the noise or the distortion. Well maybe a kind of distortion. Vinyl simply preps the signal for the speaker with a dynamic coding that is then decoded by the speaker. The signal starts as is ends with a mechanic motion of a coil in a magnet gap. THIS is what digital playback misses and why digital sounds less natural than Vinyl and tape for that matter.
In absolute terms and looked as something detached CD or digital is lengths better, but in a system with speakers it fails, as it does not work very well with the shortcomings of other components. System thinking is mandatory.
So for me the higher resolution formats is just another digital format that does the same, just with even more problems ground loops and computer noise added.
What sets vinyl playback apart from digital is not the noise or the distortion. Well maybe a kind of distortion. Vinyl simply preps the signal for the speaker with a dynamic coding that is then decoded by the speaker. The signal starts as is ends with a mechanic motion of a coil in a magnet gap. THIS is what digital playback misses and why digital sounds less natural than Vinyl and tape for that matter.
In absolute terms and looked as something detached CD or digital is lengths better, but in a system with speakers it fails, as it does not work very well with the shortcomings of other components. System thinking is mandatory.
I would put it, that digital is extremely intolerant of the shortcomings of other components - like digital TV, where poor reception means that a program is quite disturbing to view, in audio less than optimum translation to analogue can lead to sound which is quite unpalatable, offputting. So yes, system thinking is key.
As has been the case over and over again, people confuse the performance of the medium with the quality of the recording.
It's pretty lame to blame CD as a tech medium for bad, compressed for-your-car only recordings. Sigh.
jan
Yes
Natural as in 'these are the artifacts and distortions I am used to', yes.
Jan
Sorry for repeating my query, as I have already asked the same question in different thread. I am looking for 'old' reviews on sound quality compared to Cassettes/Vinyls when CDs came out (Probably in 80s I think) As the medium was new I am trying to compare reviews than and now and find some similarities; both positive and negative.
Thanks and Regards
Thanks and Regards
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