I don't believe cables make a difference, any input?

[fdegrove]

Hi,

What I was trying to get across was that if one's goal is accuracy, there are many thousands of different targets due to there being many thousands of recordings which were made with many thousands of different "filters" in the chain.

Targets? Don't you mean sources?

Whether the source is accurate or not, that's really not the point.
Too late for acttion and out of reach anyway.
For as long as you're not adding even more inaccuracies...
Assuming that what you want is to faithfully amplify your "source" that is. No?

Why would you need even more filters to accurately reproduce what's been filtered out already?

Conversely, if you'd want to undo the initial filtering, how on earth would you know what's been filtered and how?

Me no get it....

Cheers,

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by fdegrove
Everyone's goal will ultimately be different where audio is concerned.

Certainly.

However, generally speaking that is, the goal for a vast number of people involved in this industry is to try to reproduce the original message as faithfully as possible in the confines of a domestic environment.

Ok, but what are you defining as the "original message"? The original event? The pits or grooves of the recording? The sound in the recording studio at the time the recording was made?

After all, once the recording engineers have finished messing about with the recording, there isn't much you_the end user_ can do.

Well no, the recording is a fixed entity barring remastering by the end user.

Except perhaps the few courageous ones who want to equalize every single recording to their taste in order to "enjoy" even the worst offender...I wish'em good luck.

Well we're not really talking about literal equalization here. But rather the "filtering" imposed by the less-than-objectively-perfect playback equipment and acoustic environment.

If people want to use their cables (I/C, L/S or both) for filtering out deficiencies within their electronics (preamp, amp, whatever source) then this would perhaps hide some flaws in their reproduction chain, even make some badly made recordings more listenable but I cringe to think what this would do to the well recorded ones as well.

Either way, it would be money down the drain to spend x-amount of $s on cabling if all you want is some kind of "nasties" filter.

But there's another way of looking at it which I tried to get across previously but it doesn't seem to have got across too well.

Let me try again.

All recordings made to date have been made while listening through some combination of "filters," from the microphones to the loudspeakers.

Which means that the decisoins made in such recordings are based on those "filters." Which further means that as far as "accuracy" goes, the pits and grooves of the recording are meaningful only with respect to those "filters."

Let me try an analogy.

You hire a painter to paint a scene from the real world. His goal is to make the painting look as close as possible to the actual scene.

However, he can only see his canvas through a filter. Let's say it's a funhouse mirror.

So he paints the scene on his canvas while looking through the funhouse mirror and when looking through the funhouse mirror, the painting looks exactly like the real scene.

But look at the canvas without looking through the funhouse mirror and you'll see something that's distorted with respect to the real scene.

What I'm trying to get across is that the less-than-objectively-perfect recording equipment is the equivalent of the funhouse mirror. And further, most every recording out there as made using a somewhat different funhouse mirror. And finally, if you listen to these reocordings with an objectively perfect system, i.e. without the funhouse mirror, what you get is ultimately a distorted version of what was intended.

So now let's take this back to your cable example.

If a recording was made using say less neutral speaker cables, playing back that recording through more neutral speaker cables is ultimately a distortion in itself, all else being equal and if your goal is to reproduce the result intended by the one who made the recording in the first place.

se

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by fdegrove
Targets? Don't you mean sources?

I mean targets. Of if you will, the reference one uses to gauge accuracy.

Whether the source is accurate or not, that's really not the point.
Too late for acttion and out of reach anyway.
For as long as you're not adding even more inaccuracies...
Assuming that what you want is to faithfully amplify your "source" that is. No?

You seem to still miss my point.

If you don't add any inaccuracies, i.e. you use an objectively perfect system to reproduce the recording, the result you get is ultimately an inaccuracy in itself. If your reference is what was heard in the recording studio when the recording was made.

Why would you need even more filters to accurately reproduce what's been filtered out already?

Because what's in the pits and grooves of the recording is actually the INVERSE of all the "filters" that were involved in the recording chain (which includes playback by the way).

Just as the grooves on an LP contain the INVERSE of the filter in your phono preamp, to use a more literal example.

Conversely, if you'd want to undo the initial filtering, how on earth would you know what's been filtered and how?[/B]

That's the catch. You don't know.

The only thing you do know is that there was filtering and that playing the recording back with an objectively perfect system will give you something other than what was intended.

Me no get it....

Hang in there, Frank.

se

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Ok, but what are you defining as the "original message"? The original event? The pits or grooves of the recording? The sound in the recording studio at the time the recording was made?

The recording on a medium as you'd buy it from the shops.

Well no, the recording is a fixed entity barring remastering by the end user.

Geezzzzzzz......
You can do your own "post-mastering" to your heart's content but then you're basically just "freewheeling".
What would the basis for your adjustments be?
Just do whatever you like?
Without standards where do you end? Nihilism? Total chaos?
Ah....Rock 'n Roll perhaps?

But rather the "filtering" imposed by the less-than-objectively-perfect playback equipment and acoustic environment.

Oh, now it's the equipment and the room acoustics too?
Either way, you'll still be needing some standard for that as well or you'll never stop fiddling with those knobs either.

All recordings made to date have been made while listening through some combination of "filters," from the microphones to the loudspeakers.

I would say to that that some recordings are less "filtered" than others. Still that filtering's just plain inevitable.
Even the best recording equipment, ideal venue and/or ideal musicians etc. are likely to pass some kind of filtering before ending up being put on medium for the simple reason that it's not technically/economically possible to do otherwise.

However_and that's MY point _I think it's wise to start out with a reproduction chain that at least CAN (technically speaking) reproduce that original recording correctly.

If you want to tune the FR of your room for a certain deviation of the truth, use the loudness button all the time and boost the mids because you like it that way, then that's perfectly fine by me.
It's just that I wouldn't rush to the hi-fi emporium downtown to buy myself a system that has that kind of treat by it's very nature. Would you?

However, he can only see his canvas through a filter. Let's say it's a funhouse mirror.

Well, we may hold different opinions on this but it is my strong belief that it's the musician's job to do the painting.*
The recording engineer's job (and for that matter the entire recording industry's) is to deliver us a picture of that event that's as realistic as is technically possible.

*Modern "produced" recordings notwithstanding.

And finally, if you listen to these reocordings with an objectively perfect system, i.e. without the funhouse mirror, what you get is ultimately a distorted version of what was intended.

Sorry master but you're really painting with a very broad brush here...
I'll say it again, there's little point in trying to undo the "funhouse mirror" for each and every recording: you have no way of knowing the lenses.
Once you want to play that game you may want to buy yourself a tool a la Chello AudioPalette or something similar.
Nonethelesss, even Mark Levinson would start with a clean Palette, not one with left-overs from yesterday's session, I suppose.

What you seem to be proposing is even worse: you want to reuse the old colours over and over again and never clean the palette with terpentine. In fact, the palette and colours would be mixed right from the outset.
Not a good place to start IMHO.

If a recording was made using say less neutral speaker cables, playing back that recording through more neutral speaker cables is ultimately a distortion in itself, all else being equal and if your goal is to reproduce the result intended by the one who made the recording in the first place.

ROTFLMAO....
Something's either neutral or it isn't. Ask Switzerland.

If a recording was made using those, say less neutral speaker cables (somewhat coloured?), playing back that recording through more neutral speaker cables (less coloured) is ultimately better than running the same stuff through the same colouration again, won't you say?
So, using neutral gear, using neutral cables etc. is not going to colour the original more than it already was.

What's the effect on FR of n identical slope filters cascaded, Steve?

OR

- + - = +?

Cheers,

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Because what's in the pits and grooves of the recording is actually the INVERSE of all the "filters" that were involved in the recording chain (which includes playback by the way).

Say what?

Hang in there, Frank.

Errrr....I'm now on the floor, actually.

Cheers,

[rdf]

Nope. No good. She knew you changed something, and she knew when you did it. She may have imagined she heard a difference, or she may have just wanted to impress you.

You're putting yourself in her place with the knowledge of an audiophile. She was anything but so saying "crisper" is about the best to be expected. Nor do I know she was aware a change was made, I did my best to not draw attention to it. And I certainly didn't prompt for a response. The test wasn't 'perfect', but it had unique aspects. The test you describe wasn't either, the subject was under stress to perform and justify a belief system. The employer relationship also contributed to making it not the best enviroment for making subtle distinctions. I do think the two make interesting counterpoints.
For the record 2, I consider cables to make a difference in about the same degree salt does to a meal. Not overwhelming but significant with the potential for bad taste. Also, people (not you in particular) are too quick to give status the predominant role in cable preference: expensive cables are good because they cost a lot. In my case, the worse 'audiophile' cables I've ever used were very expensive van den Hull silver phono interconnects. Through multiple sysatem changes they never stayed in long. My favourites right now are home made tape-types using two strands of a heavier gauge version of the Litz from the test I described. I have no explanation why (the passive 'pre' likes the low low pF capacitance?) but there it is.

Did I make 70?

[rdf]

Originally posted by fdegrove
Not surprisingly, more often than not, the enduser blames the new cables for making his system sound bad........

Sounds familiar?

Cheers,

Now that is the voice of experience and a lesson I always try to keep in the back of my mind when reading accounts of the audible effects of changes to a system. It does raise the question of how one tells if a change improved a system's accuracy or hid a flaw, but the server's already straining under this topic. Best just back away slowly....

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by fdegrove
The recording on a medium as you'd buy it from the shops.

Ok. But as I said, the recording itself is effectively encoded with the inverse of the filters listened through during the recording process and doesn't truly represent the "original message" as intended by the producer of the recording.

Geezzzzzzz......
You can do your own "post-mastering" to your heart's content but then you're basically just "freewheeling".
What would the basis for your adjustments be?
Just do whatever you like?
Without standards where do you end? Nihilism? Total chaos?
Ah....Rock 'n Roll perhaps?

What do you mean without standards? My standard is my own pleasure. I don't listen to music for any other reason. And my pleasure doesn't derive simply from the knowledge that I'm reproducing a recording more objectively accurately.

My pleasure comes from many indefinable elements which together make up the gestalt of my experience.

And not being a piece of objective test equipment but rather a subjective human being, my greatest pleasure doesn't always coincide with the most objectively accurate reproduction.

Oh, now it's the equipment and the room acoustics too?

Well yeah. There's no way to experience a recording directly. We can only experience it after it having passed through some number of electronic components, loudspeakers while listening in some acoustical environment, save for headphone listening.

Either way, you'll still be needing some standard for that as well or you'll never stop fiddling with those knobs either.

Again, the standard is my own pleasure. And who says you have to stop fiddling? If it results in greater pleasure, I say, fiddle away, Nero.

I would say to that that some recordings are less "filtered" than others. Still that filtering's just plain inevitable.

Yes. And there's not just more or less filtering, but a wide variety of different filtering.

Even the best recording equipment, ideal venue and/or ideal musicians etc. are likely to pass some kind of filtering before ending up being put on medium for the simple reason that it's not technically/economically possible to do otherwise.

Yes.

However_and that's MY point _I think it's wise to start out with a reproduction chain that at least CAN (technically speaking) reproduce that original recording correctly.

And MY point is that due to the filtering occuring in the recording proces, the only reproduction chain that CAN (technically speaking) reproduce the original recording correctly, is the one use when it was made.

If you want to tune the FR of your room for a certain deviation of the truth, use the loudness button all the time and boost the mids because you like it that way, then that's perfectly fine by me.

Well, unless you were in the acousical environment in which the recording was made, how do you know what "the truth" is? And which recording's "truth" do you tune your room to?

It's just that I wouldn't rush to the hi-fi emporium downtown to buy myself a system that has that kind of treat by it's very nature. Would you?

Well, if a system from the hi-fi emporium with a loudness button gave me greater pleasure than one without, I'd be down at the hi-fi emporium buying one in a heartbeat.

Well, we may hold different opinions on this but it is my strong belief that it's the musician's job to do the painting.*
The recording engineer's job (and for that matter the entire recording industry's) is to deliver us a picture of that event that's as realistic as is technically possible.

That may be how you'd like it to be. But it's rarely if ever the case.

Typically it's the musician who creates the scene and the recording engineer who paints it.

*Modern "produced" recordings notwithstanding.

Heheh. Fair enough.

Though even when minimalist recording techniques are used, I typically see the microphones placed where no ears are ever likely to be during the performance.

Sorry master but you're really painting with a very broad brush here...
I'll say it again, there's little point in trying to undo the "funhouse mirror" for each and every recording: you have no way of knowing the lenses.

Exactly.

Which is why I think the end user should just create their own mirror which gives them the most pleasure at the end of the day.

Once you want to play that game you may want to buy yourself a tool a la Chello AudioPalette or something similar.

Sure.

Though really the main context here is cables and the like.

Nonethelesss, even Mark Levinson would start with a clean Palette, not one with left-overs from yesterday's session, I suppose.

Why should I give a crap what Mark Levinson would do?

What you seem to be proposing is even worse: you want to reuse the old colours over and over again and never clean the palette with terpentine. In fact, the palette and colours would be mixed right from the outset.
Not a good place to start IMHO.

I'm not really proposing anything. I'm simply pointing out that the actual recording isn't an entirely true representation of either the original event or the intent of the person who produced the recording.

It represents the inverse of the filtering the person who made the recording listened through when making it.

ROTFLMAO....
Something's either neutral or it isn't. Ask Switzerland.

By neutral I mean more objectively perfect.

If a recording was made using those, say less neutral speaker cables (somewhat coloured?), playing back that recording through more neutral speaker cables (less coloured) is ultimately better than running the same stuff through the same colouration again, won't you say?

But who says you're adding the same coloratoin again?

You still don't seem to be getting the gist of this.

If you're trying to make a recording that's as true to a live event as possible, and you're using a system which has certain inherent colorations, then you'll end up trying to compensate for the limitations of the system you're making the recording with.

If the system is say a bit thin in the midrange, and you compensate for it by beefing up the midrange in the recording a bit, then what you get on the recording itself is a recording which would be too beefy in the midrange if it were played back on a system which wasn't thin in the midrange.

In other words, the thin midrange of the recording system is a "filter" and after compenating for it, what ends up on the recording itself is the INVERSE of that "filter."

So, using neutral gear, using neutral cables etc. is not going to colour the original more than it already was.

Sure, if the "original" is the recording itself.

But as I've said, the recording itself is neither entirely true to the original event or the intent of the person making the recording.

What's the effect on FR of n identical slope filters cascaded, Steve?

Wrong context.

It's what is the effect of your phono preamp's RIAA filter on the inverse RIAA filtering encoded on your LP?

se

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by fdegrove
Say what?

I really thought that with your experience with LPs and their RIAA equalization you'd understand this.

se

[janneman]

Originally posted by rcavictim


Carlos,

You are wasting your time with this true statement. Just because something 'is' in reality does not mean that it 'is' to folks that live their lives in an entirely faith based lifestyle that have had blinders rather effectively and permanently installed by some well organized, powerful and subsequently successfully subversive outside force. Religion is perhaps the best similar example of this unfortunate phenomenon and 'quirk' of human psychological susceptibility.

Indeed, because it illustrates the fact that people like you REFUSE TO THINK!

Carlos is right about his "filter" statement. What he and you don't get is that it is completely speculation, unfounded, to conclude that "because it is a filter, it is audible". As I said, hogwash.
Maybe you should try to get your own basic thinking in order before thrying to speculate how other people do it.

Jan Didden