Sound Quality Vs. Measurements

[SY]

If everyone is finished plugging the gear that they sell, is there anything people want to discuss regarding measurements vs. sound quality, the putative topic of this thread?

[dvv]

Originally Posted by SY

If everyone is finished plugging the gear that they sell, is there anything people want to discuss regarding measurements vs. sound quality, the putative topic of this thread?

Sell my revered Marantz collection, after waiting for 27+ years to get my hands on it?

You're outta your mind, Tex! Bad T-bone for lunch?

Got your point, though. Don't mind us, friend, we like to take a break from the main subject here and there and get carried away a wee bit. Thorsten and I go back like 10 or 11 years, and some of the other guys here make for a hell of an interesting read, but you can't be dead serious ALL of the time. It gets boring.

BTW, I don't sell in North America since 2003.

[bcarso]

Originally Posted by SY

If everyone is finished plugging the gear that they sell, is there anything people want to discuss regarding measurements vs. sound quality, the putative topic of this thread?

Has anyone heard or read the JA "Heyser" lecture recently delivered at AES? I was, I readily admit, from what I had heard about it, somewhat disposed to be critical of it at the outset. However, having gotten, finally, a pdf last night from a friend, it's actually rather fascinating, and has a bearing on the thread topic. I recommend getting hold of it. John ends up wrestling with some ideas about mental representations that are eerily close to some of my own speculations.

Brad

[ThorstenL]

Hi,

Originally Posted by bcarso

Has anyone heard or read the JA "Heyser" lecture recently delivered at AES? I was, I readily admit, from what I had heard about it, somewhat disposed to be critical of it at the outset. However, having gotten, finally, a pdf last night from a friend, it's actually rather fascinating, and has a bearing on the thread topic. I recommend getting hold of it. John ends up wrestling with some ideas about mental representations that are eerily close to some of my own speculations.

I have it and have read it, I can make it available to anyone looking for it but wishes not to create extra work for John.

And i agree, it is very interesting and illuminising.

Ciao T

[CopperTop]

OK, so my question about how to audibly distinguish between the final imperfections in the audio chain from all the utilitarian 'pro' gear that preceded it may be a very old question, but I don't think I've ever heard the answer to it. Is there a 'standard' answer?

[john dozier]

Not all recordings are made with utilitarian "pro" gear. Some are made with equipment whose specs and SQ would please the most ardent "audiophile". Many smaller labels (and some larger ones) use minimalist miking techniques and a purist audio chain. Then there is the the BBC. Regards from a retired "minimalist" recording engineer and producer.

[Wavebourn]

Originally Posted by Dirk95100

From the article:


This simply means the author does not like equipment that is designed to be a wire with gain.

I understand it differently: the author knows that some designers try to minimize wrong errors while don't hear that they overlook something else more significant. We discussed already hundred pages ago how improvement of DF more that 10 does not matter, and THD less than 0.01% on full power on 1 kilo Hz frequency does not matter, while dynamic distortions added as the result of such heroic minimization start dominating.

[Wavebourn]

Originally Posted by Dirk95100

But does that mean that the perceived sound quality of designs that go the other road (adding nice sounding distortions) can not be measured with the equipment used today?

We already discussed fifty pages ago that "adding nice sounding distortions" is a myth. I especially designed and built such device with a knob, but nobody wanted to add "nice sounding distortions". I knew already they don't exist, and wanted to demonstrate to other people on the experiment, how wrong is this myth.

[SY]

I especially designed and built such device with a knob, but nobody wanted to add "nice sounding distortions".

Well, nobody wants to do it knowingly. It's like wine, where people say they want dry, but if you add some residual sugar without telling them, they like it better and the wine sells like crazy. Do you remember a fellow who popped up here a few months ago extolling the virtues of an aftermarket effects box but got quite angry when it was suggested that the coloration (EQ and distortion, in the case of his favored gadget) was what he liked?

It's well known in the food service industry- add sugar and MSG, people will love it as long as you don't make it so overtly sweet that they figure out the trick. If you tell them that's what you're doing, they'll hate it.

[bcarso]

Originally Posted by CopperTop

OK, so my question about how to audibly distinguish between the final imperfections in the audio chain from all the utilitarian 'pro' gear that preceded it may be a very old question, but I don't think I've ever heard the answer to it. Is there a 'standard' answer?

As John Dozier pointed out, there have been (and continue to be) recordings made with some wonderful gear, and not beaten to death in the post-processing --- even if these amount to a tiny fraction of recordings.

But also: even with ghastly source material, one can become very familiar with it. So it may not be such a stretch that the alterations attendant on different playback systems will be audible.

One of the things I've been amused by over the years are the accounts of listeners and reviewers who say they heard things in a given recording that they'd simply never heard, before playback system X. Well, this is often taken to be an endorsement of X, rather than considered potentially as a linear or nonlinear and/or time-variant distortion by X, which just happened to make detail Y more audible.

Does anyone remember the story of the Aphex Aural Exciter? My understanding is the company founder built a Heathkit, and he screwed up, with one channel horribly distorting. But he found that he liked a little of it mixed with the working channel, hired an engineer to analyze what was going on, and then decided to make a product around it.

As time went on the company de-emphasized that initial product, and when at the behest of a recruiter who needed money I interviewed with the then-chief engineer, he seemed almost embarrassed about it.