Bob Ludwig is 72. His top end will be shot, yet he still does good work. I see no evidence for mastering engineers having better than std hearing. They just care about the work and have got certain useful synaptic pathways in place But in a straight 'can you detect' I would not expect then to score any higher than the average.
'Traditional metal' Oh for all that is good in life, when will music writers stop trying to pigeon hole everything by reinventing names just so nme readers will seen clever in front of others. </rant>
Precisely timed stuff can be very satisfying to listen to. Breakfast times usually we have a Raga playing in the background. Some of these repeat for 45 minutes. I keep hoping either the sitar player will get the tuning right or I will finally adjust my ears to the scale they use. Likewise nothing wrong with Glass, Reich etc with their very exacting timings. Stockhausen is a little heavy for me.
But as for why people don't notice them, it's probably very complex, but liking the type of music must be in the top 3! I have no idea what 'old country music train beat' means so I don't have a reference. I do know from music lessons that I have poor rhythm so I may just not be sensitive to it even if I knew what it was.
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Train beat example (a bit jazzed up, compared to country): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2aj0zhXlLA
One can visually observe the drummer and guitarist to see how they are keeping the uneven timing with their body motions.
Good explanation of micro-timing in music, although how it applies to trapset drumming isn't explained until about 17 minutes into it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQDUOODp0H8
As an example of micro-timing in rock (as understood after watching the shaker video above), much of this rock concert is a good example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekO_9sm9pVA
A straight timed version of the same Alan Parson's music (due to the need to operate with a computer sequencer in this performance), is available so as to compare the contrast in groove with the more "swung" versions in the prior video immediately above:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8cR2FKWSHM
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I will listen and see if I understand. I think I know where you are coming from now. As I listen to more classical than non-classical music it's probably what I consider to be normal (except when I go off on a Reich fest)
Note that in UK in the 80s people started talking about 'PRAT' in hifi. I suspect it actually meant that speed stability on the LP12 wasn't that good so they had to spin doctor it 🙂
Note that in UK in the 80s people started talking about 'PRAT' in hifi. I suspect it actually meant that speed stability on the LP12 wasn't that good so they had to spin doctor it 🙂
May have been more common in classical music than we know of, since there was no recording technology available way back when. Musicologists can study and argue about it though: https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/436857/file/794506
Well trained classical musicians can play almost any swing ratio for any note duration values, although they may not be required to do it too often.
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Hi,
All amplifier-speaker systems will tend to sound different, even within the bounds of "perfect" amplifiers.
I don't design amplifiers but I do make them. I am a good friend of an actual amplifier designer and am familiar with his circuits and amplifiers. Every design change, even a small resistor value change let alone a small circuit modification can result in slightly different sound with same source music and speakers.
Wow, that is just fantastic. You have found the Holy Grail at your local thrift shop out of someone else's rejection. That is just great!
BTW, have you informed Nelson Pass over on his forum here that perfection was obtained long ago and he can give it a rest. He's been at the amplifier game a long time and has been very busy. Perhaps he missed the moment of perfection.
biological variations don't follow Gaussian distributions, have "infinite tails"
biological sensors obey physics - are limited by genetics, viable physiology
and developed under evolutionary cost/benefit pressure
they do not have "infinite tail" distributions in sensitivity, spectral range, are at best one sided with hard limits from physics of the sensing organs and signal properties
biological sensors obey physics - are limited by genetics, viable physiology
and developed under evolutionary cost/benefit pressure
they do not have "infinite tail" distributions in sensitivity, spectral range, are at best one sided with hard limits from physics of the sensing organs and signal properties
Yes, yes, it is! 😀
Perfectly good audio receivers from the 1990s and 2000s, with inaudibly low levels of distortion, now routinely end up at the thrift store, because people choose instead to listen to their shiny, new, overpriced, brick-sized Bluetooth wireless speaker-pod-thingies. In glorious monophonic sound, with a 2-inch "fullrange" speaker producing less bass response than a 1950s AM table radio. 🙂
Lots of people have missed the watershed mark where "ordinary" amplifiers became good enough to have no audible imperfections. Many of them hang out on audiophile forums.
Of course, millions of people didn't miss it, which is why there are very few eager young researchers leaping into the field of analog audio amplifier design in 2016. In fact, there is no field of analog audio amplifier design in 2016 - I've never seen an engineering college course offered in the subject.
Analog electronics is now a hundred-year-old field. Like most century-old engineering technologies, it is very mature, with little room remaining for improvement. It's a done deal already. Nothing to see here, ladies and gentlemen, move along, please!
The people who still dabble in "new and improved" designs? Why would they need me to inform them that they're on a wild-goose chase? If they care to look, the information and research studies and research articles and engineering textbooks are out there, and have been out there for decades.
People do all sorts of illogical things for fun. Some jump off bridges with bungee cords attached to our waists. Some stand on little boards with tiny rollers under them, fall off, and break their bones. Some spend thousands of hours beating expensive little balls with even more expensive sticks. Some build new amp designs that aren't any better than the old amp designs we've had since 1980.
Nothing wrong with any of that, it's just the way homo sapiens sapiens are wired. We're not particularly sapient, actually!
-Gnobuddy
Agreed. Tails are not infinite. It may be that nothing is actually infinitely large or small, since Planck scale has structure at the small extreme, and where there is no spacetime there is no such thing as distance or time, at the large extreme. But we use our mental mathematical models that include the concept of infinity for many things anyway.
Regarding listening, most of what people don't seem get is that a lot of the interesting functions of hearing seems reside more in the brain than in the ears.
Some ABX testing would seem to suggest that might not be the case:
https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/power-amplifiers-the-importance-of-the-first-watt
Here is some info about damping factor and distortion for headphone amps:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0321/7609/files/Headphone_Amplifier_Performance_-_Part_1.pdf?1361
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0321/7609/files/Headphone_Amplifier_Performance_-_Part_2.pdf?1361
http://www.ti.com/lit/an/slyt630/slyt630.pdf
Damping more generally:
Damping Factor: Effects On System Response | Audioholics
BTW, this last amplifier characteristic probably has a lot to do with by Bryston 4B is a good match to NS-10 speakers. It's not because of THD specs, noise, or bandwidth.
Anyway, my point is that not everybody hears the way you do, so own your personal observations and post-hoc constructed explanations may be perfectly fine for you, but don't necessarily generalize to everyone and every situation.
Where I would agree with you would be with some sound systems, at fairly high but not excessive volumes, and at some distance from the speakers. I used to do sound reinforcement around 40 years ago, and was able to get beautiful sound performance out of Altec and JBL horn speakers and old Crown DC-300 amplifiers. But while it sounded great for very enjoyable music on a cool, quiet night at the Berkeley Greek Theater, as one example, the same reproduction quality would not do today for near field mixing. Absolutely not.
Regarding that particular night's Bread and Rose's acoustic festival at the Greek Theater, the MC asked the audience how the sound quality was, and the audience responded with a standing ovation. (It did sound good, sometimes outdoors under the right atmospheric conditions is the best I ever heard.) The ovation was reported by the music editor in the San Francisco Chronicle, and it did happen exactly that way. When my boss read the newspaper, he was very impressed. Said he had never seen that before reported about any concert sound system.
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Not at all. Just that the example that YOU chose can easily be overcome. So please don't try to put words into my mouth, I have far too many of my own.
Could it be that the reason for all the sniping and endless arguing is because modern technology has reduced diy audio to just box making?
Been thinking maybe it might be a good time to comment on imagined hearing as often attributed to audiophiles, to the rather different learning of hearing perception in the case of mixing and mastering engineers.
There are some things we know about learning that have some parallels (but not a deep analogy) to a very important concept in audio engineering: feedback used to correct errors.
First, it may help to note that human brains are evolutionarily predisposed to err on the side of false positives for pattern recognition, and for attribution of causation where none exists.
A countervailing feature of human brains is that they are able to learn from feedback. That is, good quality, low noise, low distortion, accurate feedback, is automatically sensed and incorporated by System 1 processes to correct errors of cognitive procession. |While the ability is not perfect, many more major problems tend to be much more prevalent when feedback quality is poor or nonexistent.
In the case of audiophile beliefs about hearing, reinforcing feedback appears to be mostly a function of social proof coming from a community of audiophiles. Since people naturally tend to prefer to congregate, associate with, and find credibility in the beliefs of like-minded people, the tendency for audiophiles to do so is essentially unremarkable. An unfortunate side-effect in the absence of other feedback mechanisms is that strong connection of beliefs to physical reality is not assured.
In contrast, mix and mastering engineers are subject to additional kinds of feedback, often of higher and more reliable quality.
It is well established in learning research that prompt, high quality feedback is essential to efficient, successful learning. All the more so in complex and/or noisy environments, where establishing clear links between cause and effect usually tends to be more difficult.
Mixing and mastering engineers often start learning about the quality of their work by testing mixes and master projects on multiple different types of reproduction systems and comparing the results for each system to known high quality reference recordings. Thus, an error in mixing or mastering usually tends to become self-evident very quickly. If self generated feedback were not enough, the work of mixing and mastering engineers is also subject to careful scrutiny from professional peers, record executives, and others. Any problems found are likely to be pointed out and the product may be returned for rework, or future work may not be forthcoming. Therefore, the cost of ignoring feedback at all levels can be quite high.
To make a much longer (probably book-length project) much shorter for discussion in a forum, there may sensible reasons to expect that the accuracy of hearing beliefs among audiophiles may differ substantially from corresponding beliefs on the part of mixing and mastering engineers.
In addition, with high quality feedback, it seems likely mixing and mastering engineers may learn to a large extent to discern what hearing perceptions are real verses those which may be imagined. Over time, and with ongoing experience and continuing feedback (and the presence of continuous, ongoing, high quality feedback probably cannot be overemphasized), System 1 processes may be expected to automate much of reality discernment mental processing, as has been often shown to be the case for other types of learning occurring in the presence of prompt, accurate feedback.
New and ongoing research would likely reveal more insights and bring further clarity to the differences between audiophile verses mixing and mastering engineers listening abilities and perceptions. More research in that area that would certainly be welcome.
There are some things we know about learning that have some parallels (but not a deep analogy) to a very important concept in audio engineering: feedback used to correct errors.
First, it may help to note that human brains are evolutionarily predisposed to err on the side of false positives for pattern recognition, and for attribution of causation where none exists.
A countervailing feature of human brains is that they are able to learn from feedback. That is, good quality, low noise, low distortion, accurate feedback, is automatically sensed and incorporated by System 1 processes to correct errors of cognitive procession. |While the ability is not perfect, many more major problems tend to be much more prevalent when feedback quality is poor or nonexistent.
In the case of audiophile beliefs about hearing, reinforcing feedback appears to be mostly a function of social proof coming from a community of audiophiles. Since people naturally tend to prefer to congregate, associate with, and find credibility in the beliefs of like-minded people, the tendency for audiophiles to do so is essentially unremarkable. An unfortunate side-effect in the absence of other feedback mechanisms is that strong connection of beliefs to physical reality is not assured.
In contrast, mix and mastering engineers are subject to additional kinds of feedback, often of higher and more reliable quality.
It is well established in learning research that prompt, high quality feedback is essential to efficient, successful learning. All the more so in complex and/or noisy environments, where establishing clear links between cause and effect usually tends to be more difficult.
Mixing and mastering engineers often start learning about the quality of their work by testing mixes and master projects on multiple different types of reproduction systems and comparing the results for each system to known high quality reference recordings. Thus, an error in mixing or mastering usually tends to become self-evident very quickly. If self generated feedback were not enough, the work of mixing and mastering engineers is also subject to careful scrutiny from professional peers, record executives, and others. Any problems found are likely to be pointed out and the product may be returned for rework, or future work may not be forthcoming. Therefore, the cost of ignoring feedback at all levels can be quite high.
To make a much longer (probably book-length project) much shorter for discussion in a forum, there may sensible reasons to expect that the accuracy of hearing beliefs among audiophiles may differ substantially from corresponding beliefs on the part of mixing and mastering engineers.
In addition, with high quality feedback, it seems likely mixing and mastering engineers may learn to a large extent to discern what hearing perceptions are real verses those which may be imagined. Over time, and with ongoing experience and continuing feedback (and the presence of continuous, ongoing, high quality feedback probably cannot be overemphasized), System 1 processes may be expected to automate much of reality discernment mental processing, as has been often shown to be the case for other types of learning occurring in the presence of prompt, accurate feedback.
New and ongoing research would likely reveal more insights and bring further clarity to the differences between audiophile verses mixing and mastering engineers listening abilities and perceptions. More research in that area that would certainly be welcome.
And the professionals are selling something. So subject to market forces, which can make their decisions suspect.
BTW, that is simply a counter argument which can be applied, not necessarily my entrenched view. I can supply those too, if you wish. 😛
Markw4, I agree with you most of the part.
I have been working with mastering engineers, especially Sterling Sound guys. Their hearing ability is incredible, but more important point is, they DO fully understand how their playback system is colored. If you walk into the room of Ted Jensen and Greg Calbi, you will be surprised how different their playback sound is (the playback level is also very different), but they can compensate the coloration in their brain without any audiofool bias.
The other example is Altec 604, the ubiquitous monitor speakers around 40's-60's. They are so midrangey and phase is horrible, but the engineers at that time fully understood the coloration of them, so many of their recordings sound great even today's standard. Great thing about 604 is the coloration is consistent in many different spaces and listening points, due to its dual concentric's consistent phase shift and narrow directivity.
I have been working with mastering engineers, especially Sterling Sound guys. Their hearing ability is incredible, but more important point is, they DO fully understand how their playback system is colored. If you walk into the room of Ted Jensen and Greg Calbi, you will be surprised how different their playback sound is (the playback level is also very different), but they can compensate the coloration in their brain without any audiofool bias.
The other example is Altec 604, the ubiquitous monitor speakers around 40's-60's. They are so midrangey and phase is horrible, but the engineers at that time fully understood the coloration of them, so many of their recordings sound great even today's standard. Great thing about 604 is the coloration is consistent in many different spaces and listening points, due to its dual concentric's consistent phase shift and narrow directivity.
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No disagreement. To stay in business, it can help a lot to be something of a capitalist.
However, I think that is a separate issue from the learning process of comparing the combination of what one hears and the resulting decisions one makes, on various different playback systems, while at the some time comparing one's own work to reference tracks in the same target musical genre on each system, in terms of how that tends to enforce some level of attachment between perceptions, decisions, and physical reality. And there may not be any equivalent perception feedback correction mechanism in the audiophile world. If that makes sense in the context of my previous post. Wouldn't necessarily expect it not to be misinterpreted outside of that context.
Speaking of the old 604, UREI was wise to remove the multi-cellular end from the HF horn and replace it with an open flare. It sounded much better.
I also once did an experiment of putting a 604 in a single driver bass horn cabinet that had a flare rate similar to the HF horn. It sounded good, with surprisingly tight, punchy bass. Only problem was the HF driver stuck out of the bass cabinet in the back. Either it would need a cover like old tv sets had for the back of the CRT, or the whole bass cabinet would have to be bigger to protect the HF driver. Therefore, I decided it was impractical.
Not sure where the bass cabinet came from. We called it an 1104, I think. It may have been from JBL, or it may have been a Cal Perkins design from back in the days he was at Swanson Sound.
But if we assume the '10k hours' comes into play here, then its not just mix/mastering engineers (ignoring CLA who optimises for something far from hifi), but also any audio professionals, including the Tooles, Olives and Geddes of this world. Also of course professional musicians, at least the ones not 10dB down in one ear thanks to their instruments being so loud. Yet of course musicians as a group seem to care less about reproduction than most.
Stan Curtis used to have a party trick. He had two speakers where the only difference was in a resistor in the crossover. He could tell which was which from a single note. Of course when telling this story he never admitted how great the change wrought by this resistor was! 10Meg in series with the tweeter would be easy.
Stan Curtis used to have a party trick. He had two speakers where the only difference was in a resistor in the crossover. He could tell which was which from a single note. Of course when telling this story he never admitted how great the change wrought by this resistor was! 10Meg in series with the tweeter would be easy.
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