Really the question is "What is high?" .
My answer is that it's relative to what interests you and different between people.
I am interested in high fidelity reproduction because I like real sounds and what to recreate them in my home.
Many many people from all walks of life, including "experts" in audio equipment design, are motivated by music and their own translation of music into some kind of emotion and human relevence. This doesn't need a perfect or even near perfect reproduction of original sound to happen, it only has to portray music, music which is a cultural and invidual construct.
They are both valid in my book but the latter interest allows you to be happy with gear that is less accurate in reproduction and may even lead you to design gear that sounds nicer and somehow fulfills the emotional need better than something that is more accurate. In which case you don't have to be interested in high fidelity.
NATDBERG, you are absolutely correct, you do not have to be interested in hi-fi to enjoy what you hear, in that case hi-fi is irrelevant if your listening pleasure is purely subjective by nature.
Let us assume I have never seen or heard a real violin in my whole life. Having equipment that qualifies as hi-fi would make me hear something that I cannot reference against anything I have heard before, but I can be certain this thing I am hearing sounds like it does, whether I like this violin thing or not is irrelevant.
Let us take another scenario, still ignorant of a violin, but the system that I am using does not qualify as a hi-fi, it has bass, mid and treble controls.
In the first instant I dislike what I hear but then tune my controls until it is acceptable and almost enjoyable.
I have with these controls created such a mess that the produced signal is not even close to that recorded, but the sound is nice.
In the latter case we are considering a system that is pleasing but not at all hi-fi simply because I have modified the signal added and taken away certain harmonics, changed the phase as well as un-flatten the frequency response. This is completely non-hi-fi but sounds very enjoyable and does not comply to any particular standard - it is simply nice.
The next time I listen to the same music and my mood has changed might make me re-evaluate the settings of the controls simply because I did not enjoy the previous setting any longer but I can by a few turns of the knobs match my mood and enjoy what I heard again although it is completely different than before.
Let us assume I have never seen or heard a real violin in my whole life. Having equipment that qualifies as hi-fi would make me hear something that I cannot reference against anything I have heard before, but I can be certain this thing I am hearing sounds like it does, whether I like this violin thing or not is irrelevant.
Let us take another scenario, still ignorant of a violin, but the system that I am using does not qualify as a hi-fi, it has bass, mid and treble controls.
In the first instant I dislike what I hear but then tune my controls until it is acceptable and almost enjoyable.
I have with these controls created such a mess that the produced signal is not even close to that recorded, but the sound is nice.
In the latter case we are considering a system that is pleasing but not at all hi-fi simply because I have modified the signal added and taken away certain harmonics, changed the phase as well as un-flatten the frequency response. This is completely non-hi-fi but sounds very enjoyable and does not comply to any particular standard - it is simply nice.
The next time I listen to the same music and my mood has changed might make me re-evaluate the settings of the controls simply because I did not enjoy the previous setting any longer but I can by a few turns of the knobs match my mood and enjoy what I heard again although it is completely different than before.
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Excuse me but your post is a bit off the mark. My post was merely trying to outline that this supposed test is easier said than done as it would be extremely difficult to do in a practical manner, as in essentially impossible to do. But it is a nice idea, in theory.
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So what should we call a system which is aimed at reproducing sound with a high degree of fidelity to the original sound, so people can enjoy the music as the musicians intended? It might be useful to be able to distinguish such a system from other systems which instead aim to provide a sound which pleases the owner, or look impressive to his guests, or cost an impressive amount of money.TNT said:
Why throw away a useful term with a useful meaning, just because it has been abused by some people?
Yes. Lots of people are not interested in high fidelity, including some who think they are interested in high fidelity. They can still enjoy music.NATDBERG said:
In what sense is it impossible or extremely difficult to compare two sounds? Maybe not trivially easy, but certainly possible. How else would we know roughly what equipment characteristics are needed for sound reproduction? Should a bunch of engineers just retire to a corner and guess a few numbers (some audiophiles seem to imagine this is what happened!)?stvnharr said:
Fair enough. You say it is possible. Okay, how about you give a detailed and specific outline of how you would go about this. This is easy enough for say the string quartet to play, but how would you go about the recorded reproduced sound? I did mention some things in my original post so no need to repeat.
I do think this is a nice idea if it could happen. But to happen it has to be more than just a nice idea.
When a term has been manhandled and misused for a long time, probably because it was not properly defined in the first time, it is better to come up with a new one. The new one must be much stringently defined and useful or it will meet the same destiny.
Unfortunately I see a trend that terminology and definitions is something that is looked upon as boring and annoying.
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One day, long, long ago a bunch of audio enthusiasts listened to a reproduction of a recording made in another room. They were able to get off their seats walk next door listen to the lady sing, walk back and continue listening to the reproduction.
After the performance they clapped their hands and exclaimed remarkable, it sounds just like real life. These chaps decided to meet again and try to establish what physical analytical procedures may be followed to make several of those real sounding equipment.
They noticed that some of their findings had to do with the harmonic power density and distribution, by the bandwidth as other criteria and then set off to develop measurement techniques so that when they produced another of the machines and performed these measurements, then the two machines with the same measurements should perform virtually the same, and lo and behold it did.
They then wrote a number of simple specifications that any machine, if it complies to these requirements could be named a high fidelity amplifier (or whatever) because it should in all practical cases sound the same as the forgoing standard equipment.
Some of these enthusiasts then designed their equipment using there favorite typologies of the time and measuring it, they found that some characteristics was different, some revealed more second harmonic content and sound warmer and cuddly.
They listen to this warm and cuddly sound and they liked it. However, as soon as they walked to the other room and listened to the actual lady singing they returned and said although the reproduction sounds warm and cuddly, compared to the real lady it sounded chesty as if the singer just finished a pack of 20 cigarettes.
They went away and measured, listened and measured and came to the conclusion that machines that modifies the sound to warm and cuddly cannot be classified hi-fi so they agreed to call it home entertainment and the radiogram was born.
After the performance they clapped their hands and exclaimed remarkable, it sounds just like real life. These chaps decided to meet again and try to establish what physical analytical procedures may be followed to make several of those real sounding equipment.
They noticed that some of their findings had to do with the harmonic power density and distribution, by the bandwidth as other criteria and then set off to develop measurement techniques so that when they produced another of the machines and performed these measurements, then the two machines with the same measurements should perform virtually the same, and lo and behold it did.
They then wrote a number of simple specifications that any machine, if it complies to these requirements could be named a high fidelity amplifier (or whatever) because it should in all practical cases sound the same as the forgoing standard equipment.
Some of these enthusiasts then designed their equipment using there favorite typologies of the time and measuring it, they found that some characteristics was different, some revealed more second harmonic content and sound warmer and cuddly.
They listen to this warm and cuddly sound and they liked it. However, as soon as they walked to the other room and listened to the actual lady singing they returned and said although the reproduction sounds warm and cuddly, compared to the real lady it sounded chesty as if the singer just finished a pack of 20 cigarettes.
They went away and measured, listened and measured and came to the conclusion that machines that modifies the sound to warm and cuddly cannot be classified hi-fi so they agreed to call it home entertainment and the radiogram was born.
Ok, if we can't call it hi-fi, how about li-rep? (short for lifelike reproduction). Is that better? Will people one day be arguing on a cosmic teleportation channel about how poorly defined is li-rep and how useless it is as a term - of course, by then it will be possible to do quantum teleportation (known as quan-tel) of a whole symphony orchestra into someone's house. They would need the Tardis service to make the house large enough inside, but by then most houses will have this.
The name is not so important - its the definitions and requirements that matter. Why include the word "like"? Aim higher 😉
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"HI-FI" meant nothing 40 years ago.
Back in the 70's, cassette decks were marketed as hifi and were a must have addition to everyone's setup. They had terrible wow and flutter, even before the elastic band stretched, and not to mention those birds nests requiring a pencil to be at the ready at all times.
MP3's are infinitely better but they do not appeal to the vintage analog boys with their record players and tubes and who are probably still using the term, HIFI
I am slightly pleased that miracast in its current implementation is horribly broken as it stops my daughters taking over the stereo. They are also grumpy that they cannot stream music via bluetooth to my car stereo, another cause of joy. I have way too much music to keep on a phone, and I don't trust the cloud, so I am not entirely sure of the point of casting other than when we have a soundcloud/bandcamp evening of hunting for new and interesting music. but even then an HDMI cable into the TV and all sorted.
But choice is good, and its a great time to be a music lover 🙂
I don't see any numbers of people that determines whether it's most or not. Where did you get such idea from?
The idea of invoking statistics to determine what should be deemed Hi-Fi, may be attributed to DF, at least recently and in this thread.
Taking the same idea and applying it to how Hi-Fi is currently defined, one might proceed as follows:
If one were to look here, which I very diligently did: https://www.google.com/webhp?source...NG_enUS662US664&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=hi fi
It turns out the percentage of hits, including from dictionary and encyclopedia websites, that define Hi-Fi as sound reproduction indistinguishable from a live performance is approximately 0%. The percentage goes up slightly if one includes the site DIYaudio in search and include posts by DF. Do you dispute this number as being approximately correct?
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Oh come on, we do:
ca·pac·i·tor
kəˈpasədər/
noun
a device used to store an electric charge, consisting of one or more pairs of conductors separated by an insulator.
In physics 101 , as you may recall, capacitors are not defined by engineering tolerances and other nonlinearities. Those are considered deviations from the definition of an ideal capacitor.
If we can get back to more serious talk, my only dispute is not with the usefulness of the definition of Hi-Fi you advocate. Only disagreement is with further overloading the old term, Hi-Fi.
You suggested li-fi, but that one might not be so good because it can be too easily abused: "Lying Fidelity." We should be able to come up with something agreeable though.
You are dodging my question. You stated, "It dosen't mean anything to most people". But it turns out that the source is your imagination. 🙄
Back here: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/lounge/204456-you-really-interested-hi-fi-98.html#post4954998
I said:
"2. While the definition you prefer may be good and useful in some circumstances, it is not generally accepted as the definition of Hi-Fi by most people. This despite you insistence that no other practical interpretation is possible."
"Look, if you like apply statistics, it should be clear that statistics also apply to what people understand words to mean. Most people, statistically speaking, don't share your definition if Hi-Fi. A quick Google search, and examination of several dictionaries confirm this."
I continue to stand by those statements.
In addition, you appear to be confused by who said what. The quote you mentioned came from someone else, not me:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/lounge/204456-you-really-interested-hi-fi-98.html#post4955158
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I recently was unable to distinguish between a live band and a recording, so I consider myself fooled. The band was playing at a wedding and then took a break, putting on some recorded music. The mix of the live band may have been bad, but that stereo equipment would be welcome in my living room, although I would not play it that loud. Unfortunately being not able to tell the difference between real live noise and recorded noise may not mean that it is Hi-Fi.
The definition in Wikipedia works for me:
Most people cannot hear distortion except at high levels, and noise is not an issue with modern equipment, I think.
How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality? : The Record : NPR
The definition in Wikipedia works for me:
Most people cannot hear distortion except at high levels, and noise is not an issue with modern equipment, I think.
How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality? : The Record : NPR
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