Sound Quality Vs. Measurements

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Hearing does all sorts of stuff, and takes some time to do it too, shockingly.

There's a direct route to your danger avoidance systems, so you react to an alarming sound before you become conscious of it some time later. Assuming we don't have buffers, that delay must have some quite profound effects? I can't see how live orchestral music ever worked...I have to listen to a piece several times before I feel I've heard it in it's proper sequence.

It's interesting that conscious hearing is so selective, but what's more interesting is the process of selection. When you switch everything off at night, and all the whirring and humming that your ears have been blanking out stops, you can halve the volume and still hear much more clearly. Your ears adapt, but adaptation seems to be costly in one way or another.
 
here's a video of Bob Katz, taken during a mastering session with the artist himself:
Bob Katz Mastering Session - Juan Carlos Salazar - YouTube

they are actually listening to the result on what could be a typical home-studio chain, containing Pass Labs amps and Lipinsky speakers. as far as my understanding goes, they are trying to create a result that would please them if they were in their homes, listening to a CD they bought.
Thanks for pointing to that link ... because that exemplifies everything that's wrong with typical playback: I couldn't live with the quality of the sound they're listening to on those monitors - it's crap, pure and simple! I would suspect Katz could get as good as he wants, and if that's the level of quality he's happy with, it does say a lot about the standards in the industry ...

Even on a YouTube video, listening on nothing PC speakers, the difference between the natural sounds in the video - the people talking, fiddling with keyboard, etc, all sound "real" - and the playback - cluttered, compressed, murky - is dramatic -- compare that with the punch and clarity of the intro theme, for example. Yes, you're listening to a recording of a playback, but that should still sound as good, in terms of having a genuine musical quality about it, as the "real thing"!
 
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Thanks for pointing to that link ... because that exemplifies everything that's wrong with typical playback: I couldn't live with the quality of the sound they're listening to on those monitors - it's crap, pure and simple! I would suspect Katz could get as good as he wants, and if that's the level of quality he's happy with, it does say a lot about the standards in the industry ...

Even on a YouTube video, listening on nothing PC speakers, the difference between the natural sounds in the video - the people talking, fiddling with keyboard, etc, all sound "real" - and the playback - cluttered, compressed, murky - is dramatic -- compare that with the punch and clarity of the intro theme, for example. Yes, you're listening to a recording of a playback, but that should still sound as good, in terms of having a genuine musical quality about it, as the "real thing"!
Frank, according to the laws of physics of this Universe, there's no way anyone can respond to this without breaking 3 fourths of the forum rules. and it's exactly why anyone won't, because they want to keep their membersship.

I went to Hawaii this weekend. on Google Street View, forgot to mention. the weather was just great, not cold, not hot. I loved the food too (pictures of, forgot to mention).
 
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When I go to recording studios it is an alien world . Somehow mostly it is OK the finished product . I suppose it is the operating theater and one shouldn't know what goes on ? Sometimes a good face lift is done . Crossed microphones and a Rexox . Does it get any better ? Sounds so real it is probably unmarketable ? That's the problem . Through Lo-Fi it just won't have anything .

I like my system . It is not fatiguing and shows the layers . It also sounds OK on bad material . What I love is it sounds like Lo-Fi at worst and that is OK . Lower than Lo Fi is normal if a system is high resolution . I think resonance is the key . Many speakers have ghosts of resonance in them I suspect ? Lo Fi material seeks it out ?

Bridge over troubled water is both hi fi and lo fi compatible . Beatles , Pink Floyd . Fleetwood Mac Rumours . Beethoven 6 . Rumours used a music dependent phase shifter to get the special sound . It is said the inventor repaired a guitar amp incorrectly . He kept a note of it and studied why it worked .
 
Frank,

A video camera with what type of microphone? Obviously standing in corner next to one of the monitors?

Sound of room reflections during chat is rather horrifying.

Listening setup has tiny sweet spot, not unlike many domestic setups.

But yes, very disappointing; standardization is in short supply within the industry.

Still, I would reserve judgment without first giving the finished product a good listing.
 
Sound of room reflections during chat is rather horrifying.
LOL
exactly! and that's "natural sound"! I've never heard keyboard keys sounding like that, the mics are picking up reflections more than direct sound.
the same goes for the voices.
it is ridiculous to see someone taking that kind of thing as a reference, while other people spend big bucks for differences a few orders of magnitude lower.
and if I even dare to remind people that fas42 is listening to a broken TV while commenting on big buck systems, I'm probably the evil one...
 
Think about it: a recording of a live instrument will have a certain quality which identifies it as being real, irrespective of the acoustics or quality of the clip recording device. If a playback system in that same environment reproduces a recording of that instrument it should have very close to the same qualities coming through on the clip; if it doesn't come close on the video, how on earth can it sound reasonable to the people who were listening live?

I say this because that is one of the 'primitive' tests I've recently done - record the playback, and compare that to the original track: in key areas of quality there should be a very good match if all's working well ...
 
to Frank:
I'm hesitating at each reply because I'm getting that "it's not worth it" feeling, but...
I'm not even sure you have any idea about the fact that microphones have a very important characteristic (crucial maybe) that's called directivity. record something with you camera while holding it directly and close to the sound source. then go to the next room and speak, make some random noises. it generally sounds nowhere close to the real thing because as a result of directivity, it will likely pick up reflections (first, second, third... nth order) with messed up spectras because of the reflecting characteristic of the surfaces they hit, delayed in time etc. in short, NOTHING like the direct sound coming from 30 cm in front of the mic. yes, just as your ears do, but your ears will pick up the reflections very differently because of a very different polar pattern.

what you wrote above has NO connection with real life and my own experience.
 
and that's "natural sound"! I've never heard keyboard keys sounding like that, the mics are picking up reflections more than direct sound.
the same goes for the voices.
Yes, you can hear the reflections, and that's a key part of what makes the sound "real". I've listened to people talking in small rooms, on odd occasions, over the the years :), and strangely enough it sounds a lot like what I hear in that video. In other words, I'm not the slightest bit interested in what the ratio of direct to reflected sound is, I'm interested in whether it sounds like natural sound does - if it echoes for a minute afterwards, so be it - so long as it mimics the characteristics of what the ear hears in a certain environment.

If anyone thinks the playback Katz is listening to is of decent quality then they are in a totally different universe from me ...
 
One problem with mics is hiss . The other is conductors swearing . Hiss to swearing ratio is important . Maybe the logical Blumlein positioning has too much swearing and made it unpopular ?

To be clear . It will not surprise anyone that how the conductor hears it is in someways important . Swearing aside turning paper and sniffing is a problem . Sad because it is an easy sweet spot that's worth trying . I usually went 1 metre up and slightly forward . String works well , an old BBC trick . The best mic stand in the world can't compete with string . As for mics and spacing I read the books on that . Spaced pairs are nice .
 
to Frank:
I'm hesitating at each reply because I'm getting that "it's not worth it" feeling, but...

...

what you wrote above has NO connection with real life and my own experience.
push_pull, I appreciate you're coming from a completely different angle from me, and I know that a lot of people are happy with what most studio monitors put out - but it's wrong, totally wrong. The level of distortion alone is terrible, if you can't hear how bad it is in that video we're on different planets ...
 
if you can't hear how bad it is in that video we're on different planets ...
yes, you are on a different planet.
I never wrote or thought that what's in that video sounds good. judging sound by an YouTube video is nonsense. I only meant to point out that what they're doing there (mastering) includes listening on home equipment.
the only way to give qualitative opinions about what they're doing there is to listen to that CD on a serious audio system.

the absurdity of all this is that I need to discuss with you within the bounds of forum rules while the substance of the issue is outside the realm of common sense. one of the marvelous by-products of political correctness.

one thing I agree on though... if you really think the voices and the keyboard sound real (as in real life), you are certainly perceiving another version of reality.
 
push_pull, I appreciate you're coming from a completely different angle from me, and I know that a lot of people are happy with what most studio monitors put out - but it's wrong, totally wrong. The level of distortion alone is terrible, if you can't hear how bad it is in that video we're on different planets ...

I love it all . The tick is to get a hi fi together that will accommodate standard stuff . The layers matter to me . The BBC doesn't seem to do pure coincident mics any more . Not sure what they do . Went to a Radio 3 recording the other day . Still looked the same except far more mics than the past .

I talked to a man from EMI who might have been Peter Andre ? Asking why recording standards were falling he asked me to define what I meant . He almost cried and said . Because we had to read music and play four instruments then to get the job . Now it is , can you repair equipment and have some love of music . As he said loving music and understanding music is not the same . That is it sounds nice , it just doesn't sound like the score . Beethoven suffers badly from this . Mahler not so much . Some music is hard to photograph for the ears .
 
the absurdity of all this is that I need to discuss with you within the bounds of forum rules while the substance of the issue is outside the realm of common sense. one of the marvelous by-products of political correctness.

one thing I agree on though... if you really think the voices and the keyboard sound real (as in real life), you are certainly perceiving another version of reality.
Sorry, I'm listening to different aspects of the sound then those you are. I hear in that video the qualities in the monitor playback which match the problems typical systems have in real life, that which immediately identifies what you're hearing is a hifi system.

As a counter to that clip, there are a few, a very rare few which demonstrate systems being capable of quite impressive reproduction ...
 
Asking why recording standards were falling he asked me to define what I meant . He almost cried and said . Because we had to read music and play four instruments then to get the job . Now it is , can you repair equipment and have some love of music . As he said loving music and understanding music is not the same . That is it sounds nice , it just doesn't sound like the score . Beethoven suffers badly from this . Mahler not so much . Some music is hard to photograph for the ears .
Recording standards are certainly falling - classical is very disappointing in this regard. A recent violin duo doing short pieces was quite atrocious, the variation in technical quality from one track to the next was glaringly obvious, as if much of the time they hadn't bothered to warm up the equipment properly - one recording engineer echoed this sentiment, saying the old days of caring were gone, now it was just time is money ...
 
Speaking of real data, a couple of times I've investigated video clips which had both 'live' sound and 'high quality' reproduction of the nominally same performance or sound, inspecting the waveforms at appropriate points. The differences were horrendous, DiffMaker would have had an instant heart attack -- merely confirmed what one's ears clearly heard ...
 
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