It is absolutely OK with me to make a choice of bad recording of a great musician if there is not a good one available 😉
I listened to a podcast of Alfred Brendel and was impressed by the 1936 Busch Quartet recording of Beethoven.
BBC - Desert Island Discs - Castaway : Alfred Brendel
BBC - Desert Island Discs - Castaway : Alfred Brendel
Hey we have similarity here. My definition of "good" systems are those who can display or differentiate the quality of the musicians or singers. It's the system ability to display whatever it is in great music.
I think musical quality lives on a different level to sound quality.
Musical quality shows itself in very high-level aspects of the structure of the sound that encode emotional messages in a similar way to speech. Recording and playback systems degrade sound on a lower level, in much simpler and coarser ways. They might restrict the frequency range, constrict the stereo image or muddle fine details with distortion, but they can't touch the emotional impact of a good performance, because they are nowhere near smart enough to decode it. Great music will captivate you in spite of the system used to record and reproduce it.
That's not my experience.
In my preferred system you will know why a great singer is a great singer. You can appreciate great pianists and musicians. Most systems don't have this characteristics at all.
Posts relating to Pavels new thread Ultimate listening test - trial no. 3 have been moved to the new thread 🙂
Ultimate listening test - trial no. 3
Ultimate listening test - trial no. 3
Again, there's a hole in the middle in SQ with audio systems - and that's especially the case, easily noticeable for classical, I find. A very unpretentious, mid-fi nothing can deliver enthralling renditions of classical music, capture your attention totally -- and at the other end also the performance completely envelops you with beautiful sound. But in that middle there is a tremendous amount of grindingly tedious replay, which are akin to torture sessions at times, the violins and similar have a flat, boring, screechy quality, that's a huge turn off - I've listened to plenty of these over the years, on other people's systems - why do they bother, I wonder ...?
Quick Audacity question.
When recording with Audacity and using the PC's A-D convertor (so using line inputs) where in the chain is Audacitys record level attenuator.
Does the setting affect quality and resolution of the recorded file ?
What I am getting at is whether it is better to set the slider to full and attenuate the input or, is it OK to attenuate using just the slider. To avoid clipping I find the slider has to be no more than around "0.22" on its scale.
When recording with Audacity and using the PC's A-D convertor (so using line inputs) where in the chain is Audacitys record level attenuator.
Does the setting affect quality and resolution of the recorded file ?
What I am getting at is whether it is better to set the slider to full and attenuate the input or, is it OK to attenuate using just the slider. To avoid clipping I find the slider has to be no more than around "0.22" on its scale.
Attachments
Yes, generally better to set the slider to full and attenuate the input. Some sound cards distort if input is near full scale so you should check that too.
You need to make Rightmark loopback test or you may use other SW that is able to make FFT, S/N etc. and you have to optimize both output and input level for lowest distortion and highest S/N. It may be pretty tricky with various soundcards. 100% level setting usually results in quite high distortion and unwanted digital artifacts. There is no advice without proper measurements.
Yes, the position of the record level attenuator depends on the details of your particular soundcard. Some have an analog mixer with level control, others do the mixing in the digital domain.
Even if the chip does have an analog mixer, it may not be able to handle more than about 3V p-p input without distortion, irrespective of how the mixer is set.
Even if the chip does have an analog mixer, it may not be able to handle more than about 3V p-p input without distortion, irrespective of how the mixer is set.
That makes a lot of sense because I found that a CD player connected to the line input and playing a 0db test tone actually breaks through and is loud and horribly distorted even when no audio programs/Audacity etc are running. PS was just displaying the desktop. Drop the input level down a few db and silence returned. Thanks 🙂
Another one 🙂
This test and particularly one I will post later has real relevance to circuits we all build and use.
Is it live... or is it Memorex... you decide
This test and particularly one I will post later has real relevance to circuits we all build and use.
Is it live... or is it Memorex... you decide
And here is the later one. This one matters 😀 because it might help answer some questions I have had.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/ever...al-listening-comparison-test.html#post3727348
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/ever...al-listening-comparison-test.html#post3727348
Vinyl x CD
Based on sonics, which do you prefer? 😉
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ic5e2iv9zuibtjr/vincd.zip
There is a vinyl and cd version of the same song. No ABX requested for now 😉.
Based on sonics, which do you prefer? 😉
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ic5e2iv9zuibtjr/vincd.zip
There is a vinyl and cd version of the same song. No ABX requested for now 😉.
Listened to on headphones the vinyl wins out. As a piece of music ? it is absolutely *^%$ awful 😀 The Vinyl is more tolerable, less midrange harshness and particularly at the start, less nauseating due to a softer and less wide image. The vinyl seems to be at a slightly lower level but even turning it up it was still preferable.
Thanks for your input, Karl. Yes, vinyl is at about 3dB lower level, but also a bit different dynamics, so it is difficult to match - depends on part of the music. It is fine to increase volume, we do not want to make a serious ABX in this test, just subjective impressions.
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