Well my experience differs. Whenever I go to a live acoustic performance whatever the seats I realise how woefully poor hifi is and how Holt was right in a lot of his rantings. Now oddly even back in the 80s some people were complaining that concerts didn't sound like hifi and sadly some halls are now putting in reinforcement systems to try and make the live event closer to the recording. That is not my personal idea of progress, but hey ho.
I read a fascinating article about 10 years ago (sadly no longer have), interviewing one of the foremost piano technicians*. His view was that no one ever allows enough budget for voicing as ideally the piano is re-voiced for each type of music played. A studio will tune once for a session and that will be it. Which is fine if the whole session is the same composer, but often it is not. Damn those financial pressures that the real world brings!
*technician is possibly the wrong word for the limited elite who can strip a piano and voice it according the exact requirements of the artist and the music.
I recently went to see Seckou Keita playing the kora. I already had a CD*, and I was amused to discover that the bass boom I was trying to overcome is the actual sound of the instrument! It's easy to disappear up one's own fundament searching for the perfect reproduction. 😀
*https://seckoukeita.bandcamp.com/album/22-strings
I don't know what "silence" you refer to.Markw4 said:
Genuine hi-fi is routinely achieved and has been for many years. This is demonstrated by the fact that quite different hi-fi systems are found to be indistinguishable from each other. A modern problem is that the music industry is not that interested in providing the raw material for hi-fi playback (i.e. good recordings, not messed about with) but that is a separate problem.
Of course, there are lots of cheap (and expensive!) systems which claim to be hi-fi but are not. There are lots of people striving to make hi-fi speakers in tiny cabinets - too small to do the job properly, so various different compromises have to be tried.
The real problem with hi-fi is the people who talk about it but don't understand it because they don't like it themselves. They want what I call 'audio', which is quite different from hi-fi. Unfortunately they like to call their preferred sound 'hi-fi' too, then try to claim that the term is ill-defined. That is like someone who says he is a socialist but doesn't believe in common ownership of the production of wealth, or someone who says he follows religion X but does not believe the basic tenets of X, or someone who claims to like good food but always eats in certain international fast-food establishments.
"Better" as what? Better as an experience? That is a matter of taste.BasicHIFI1 said:
Better as a representation of real sound in a concert hall? Clearly the actual performance (even heard from a bad seat) is the real sound, so must be better as a presentation of the real sound than anything else.
I guess genuine hi-fi is of little interest for you?
How would you recognise it, if you don't know what the real thing sounds like? Why would you want it, if you don't particularly like the sound of the real thing anyway?
Because it doesn't sound like a real piano? Obviously it is better if the real piano has been properly tuned.Markw4 said:
Not my definition. Just my understanding of what I thought was the only sensible and universally accepted definition (until this thread showed otherwise). Two alternative 'definitions' seem to be on offer here:
1. hi-fi is what pleases a particular person - no use as a definition for a word as it means different things to different people
2. hi-fi is what is indistinguishable from the real thing for everyone - not very helpful for setting equipment requirements as it is strictly unattainable
So in the absence of a viable alternative I will stick with what some of you wrongly call 'my' definition.
It is an unfortunate reality that the vast majority of peer-reviewed professional audiology research involves very low fidelity reproduction. Nor is it common to use frequencies below 250 Hz and a an upper cutoff of 8KHz is the standard.
There exists research done by professional audio companies and a very very few academics that utilizes better ... far from best, typically ... equipment. We are limited to using the research we have available.
As for measurements and measuring, I have and use, and have always used since the late 1970's, some rather useful test equipment. Tektronix, Kiethley, Leader, Fluke, and a few other brands populate my test bench. But broadly speaking I notice things first by listening, then try to measure to discover why I hear what I do, and then try to mitigate the issue or discover the reason for excellence. I have always approached audio through a great deal of comparing (and there is plenty to compare).
I also try to read the current peer reviewed literature and any other reasonably argued research or opinion. Sometimes I even learn something. With regard to anyone who does the same, I would be surprised to discover they are not of the opinion that there is a great deal we do not know about "HiFi". And all that despite some rather sophisticated measurement machines at the disposal of, typically, research institutions or corporations and the lucky individuals who get to use them.
But I always have to come back to the basic premise ... we ask the equipment to do a job, and yet some reject the performance of that job as irrelevant or at a minimum, subservient to a machine's conclusion. (We also know that you can build the equipment to please a machine ... there has never been a shortage of manufacturers in the audio market who are willing to do just that).
If measurement is more important than listening then there is no rational reason why such a product should not offer penultimate performance at the task it is designed to satisfy. And maybe it does ... if that task is to measure well. But I cannot deny that I have experienced many instances where such devices were not even competitive, let alone superlative, when auditioned by myself.
I have yet to find a rational explanation of that result that nullifies the suspicion that our test measurements alone are not the whole picture. Useful ... without reservation, useful. But not the complete measure.
We mere mortals do not posses enough lifetime to learn everything there is to learn on the subject.
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The phrase "most people" has been used a few times here, but what does that mean? "Most people" would seem to be satisfied with something that "a few people" wouldn't even consider mid-fi. Perhaps a less vague term could be used? Otherwise it is just an assumption to try to "prove" a point.
Just saying.
Just saying.
Interesting claim. Indistinguishable from each other is not the same as indistinguishable from the original performance, of course. Suppose we limit source material to some reputable vendor, say Chesky, or whatever would be suitable. Could you give some examples of systems that you feel meet your criteria, and, if reasonably possible, their approximate cost range? Perhaps that would help solidify our understanding of what overall level of systems you think could be considered to meet the standard of quality you advocate.
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Indistinguishable from each other is what you should expect from systems which can faithfully reproduce sound. If they are close enough to the original to be indistinguishable from it then they will also be close enough to each other to be indistinguishable. On the other hand, if several systems can be distinguished then at best one can be hi-fi.
I don't have references. I'm sure google can help.
I have already dealt with the 'most people' issue. If the original research could be found then this would settle the matter. Until then, my guess is that 'most' means something like 90-95%. Note that the test was not 'do you like this?' but 'is what you now hear real or reproduced?'. People who don't like hi-fi can probably still judge whether something is hi-fi.
I am getting bored with this thread. Like all such threads it is now going round in circles. I bet there are similar threads on political websites, where champagne socialists argue about the true meaning of socialism.
I don't have references. I'm sure google can help.
I have already dealt with the 'most people' issue. If the original research could be found then this would settle the matter. Until then, my guess is that 'most' means something like 90-95%. Note that the test was not 'do you like this?' but 'is what you now hear real or reproduced?'. People who don't like hi-fi can probably still judge whether something is hi-fi.
I am getting bored with this thread. Like all such threads it is now going round in circles. I bet there are similar threads on political websites, where champagne socialists argue about the true meaning of socialism.
It is most certainly not my experience that various HiFi systems are indistinguishable from each other.
At it's simplest, it might just mean those those who do not allocate significant resources to music playback equipment, or who would not compromise the home with relatively bulky audio gear (often alluded to as the "Wife Acceptance Factor") versus those who would consider it money well spent. I am not suggesting a large amount of money is required ... anything more than modest department store or computer store gear is probably a decent enough line in the sand.
Versus perhaps someone who would take the time to audition the gear they decide to buy ... even "computer speakers" come in different Sound Quality (SQ) variants at similar price points ... or some similar show of more than passing interest in how well they like the sound.
There is some research that shows that roughly 80% of a random group of ordinary listeners have difficulty distinguishing between subtle differences and of those who can, repeatedly and reliably, discern a difference, only half of those are able to repeatedly and reliably indicate correctly that two identical sound samples are identical.
It is also well proven (as in, many consistent and confirming peer-reviewed studies exist; there is actually no debate any longer on the subject) that human auditory senses can be improved by training.
Also well established in research is that music education improves hearing, speech recognition, and discerning one source amongst a number (such as hearing one speaker in a crowded, noisy "cocktail party") regardless of age.
When youth experience music education, even amongst those who do not continue the studies or play an instrument, the improvement lasts a lifetime and such subjects have more acute hearing even when faced with significant hearing loss. And as a side benefit, music education improves language function and reading ability.
Note that "music education" can involve teaching someone to play an instrument, but does not require it ... merely listening to music, with training, is adequate.
It's only a suggestion, but there is ear training software available, some of it Open Source, for anyone to try. We would always welcome a more advanced piece of test equipment in the lab, I see no reason why we could not apply the same to our ears (or our physical senses, our brain stem, and our grey matter itself ... the parts that are involved in "hearing").
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So 80% of people are useless for the purpose of this discussion? And if we are part of the other 20%, we can't even agree. So as I suggested, "most people" is a useless phrase.
And I am not surprised by the evidence that hearing can be improved; other senses can, so why not hearing? Learning to read Braille springs to mind.
Well, if you feel that all audio systems distinguish themselves only in "subtle differences" ... things like comparing digital lossy compression algorithms ... then yes, 80% ... arguably 90% ... of people are useless for the purpose of this discussion, probably.
However I am reasonably confident that those participating in this discussion own systems that are easily distinguishable from each other; to the point that the typical college student volunteers that are the darlings of the research community could tell them apart.
I do realize that some here have proposed that they all sound essentially the same. Noted, but disagree.
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Understood in principle. But what should be and what is are not necessarily the same thing. Not everybody is convinced such systems are readily available today and have been in the past. If we could get down to specifics by examining a few systems, then maybe what is meant by different people will will become more quantifiable. As it is, some of the claims remain very vague.
Would those be the same students who didn't notice the guy in a gorilla suit running across the screen? 😀
Did you mean "HiFi" systems? If it was distinguishable, it should be called lo-fi or something other than HiFi.
But knowing and being convinced are not necessarily the same thing. Hi-fi audio electronics would be judged based on how they reproduce input to output.
"It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."
-Will Rogers
-Will Rogers
I never suggested that the systems owned by most people in this discussion sound the same. On the contrary, the confusion about the meaning of hi-fi suggests that it is most likely that their systems do sound different because in many cases hi-fi was not the aim. I said that hi-fi systems will sound the same, not audiophile systems.Johnny2Bad said:
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