Sound real to who ? The last few percent is what exactly ?
It's not the orientation of your inductors, that's for sure.
The difference between a real performance and Hi-fi is vast.
Just plot your loudspeaker frequency response in your room and you begin to realise that hi-fi is never going to be real.
Audiophiles need to become detached from the hi-fi and more engaged in the performance, and the music. For this you need imagination, not lower noise.
Your search for perfection will only be realised by attending more live performances.
I'm not saying that you should give up on improving audio reproduction, but unless you understand that what you are listening to is a compressed copy of the performance, but a good stab at it nonetheless, you will never be satisfied.
I'm pretty sure the testing should involve attaching speaker wire to the listener's testicles. I'm not sure why, but it probably involves negative consequences for unsatisfactory answers.
mwaters10 said:
proof?
lol.
mwaters10 said:
location and sonic character of sources, dynamics and delays. unavoidable.
however, we do only have two ears, and the more inductors, or capacitors that are 'properly aligned' (not saying alignment makes an audible difference, but if it shows up on paper, then it CAN potentially show up at the ears), the better chance that reproductions will stay in their appropriate (fidelity is what it's all about) spaces.
listening to stereo is actually 'easier' than listening to acoustic performances. less to 'decode'.
The closer you get to "perfection" the worse it gets to abstract from faults
Imagine a perfectly cut lawn, a throw a white towel, and it will draw your full attention
Imagine a perfectly cut lawn, a throw a white towel, and it will draw your full attention
mwaters10 said:
Just plot the response of a few concert halls - or different seats in a single hall - and you'll realize that a live performance can never sound like a real violin.
Easy, change your inductors around.
Is the sound real ?
Next time you go to an opera, see if you can hear sibilance or PRAT, or distortion, or intermodulation noise, or RF noise, or crosstalk, or ultrasonic noise .... etc ..
Anyway it does not matter how much there is to decode. You are a human being, not a machine.
dzzmiller said:
dzzmiller,
I'm sure that Dave was talking about amps as well. From the condescending tone of the above, it's pretty obvious that you need to be a little more thoughtful before you reply.
As anyone that has been around for awhile, or has had the opportunity to see the ground floor of Dave's house can tell you, there's probably that many amps stored there, not to mention output transformers, capacitors, chokes, inductors, etc. and 1000's of exotic loudspeaker drivers.
Please note that Dave mentioned 70's and 80's amps.
I also fail to see why integrated amps would be excluded, especially if they allow for use of the amp itself without the preamp section. My Sansui AU 7900 can be configured as such and it's certainly an excellent sounding amp, although Dave may not neccessarily agree.
😀
Best Regards,
TerryO
In the words of Alvarado, "What is reality?"
I had an experience this evening that I've had many times before. I was walking home from work and passed an Irish pub. Now you must understand, Butte is a VERY Irish town- St. Patrick's Day is bigger here than Christmas. As I walked past the bar (the door was closed, we're having a blizzard), I could hear music, a guitar, fiddle, and bodhran. Even though the frequency response, imaging, and dynamics coming through the thick walls and shut door were certainly horribly compromised, there was no mistaking- this was LIVE music. I stopped in for a minute to confirm and listen- they were very, very good- and maybe down a pint or three.
In any case, I seriously doubt that wire or frequency response or any of the other stuff that audiophiles prattle on about mean a damn thing.
I had an experience this evening that I've had many times before. I was walking home from work and passed an Irish pub. Now you must understand, Butte is a VERY Irish town- St. Patrick's Day is bigger here than Christmas. As I walked past the bar (the door was closed, we're having a blizzard), I could hear music, a guitar, fiddle, and bodhran. Even though the frequency response, imaging, and dynamics coming through the thick walls and shut door were certainly horribly compromised, there was no mistaking- this was LIVE music. I stopped in for a minute to confirm and listen- they were very, very good- and maybe down a pint or three.
In any case, I seriously doubt that wire or frequency response or any of the other stuff that audiophiles prattle on about mean a damn thing.
I think blind testing can work and Charles Hansen has done blind testing that does work, and I sincerely doubt he's making things up here. Familiarity, Importance, and Experience have to be taken into account when doing a blind tests. And A-B comparisons at matched levels are very important. You can read about it in this post:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1774292#post1774292
Why this testing works has to do with how we hear. I've had some experiences with my hearing that led me learning about how our hearing works. And I wanted to share these experiences and ideas so I wrote about it.
I think the answers to many subjective vs. objective questions are available. I also think audiophiles are too concerned with cables. I think these differences wouldn't seem so big if people if used tone controls. I also think access to quality tone controls, would allow people to enjoy the music more and not be so obsessive over the quality of every recording. Tone controls won't help every recording but even changes in your sound environment or emotional state can change how your system sounds to you. I think people need some control over there system. Just my 2 cents.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1774292#post1774292
Why this testing works has to do with how we hear. I've had some experiences with my hearing that led me learning about how our hearing works. And I wanted to share these experiences and ideas so I wrote about it.
I think the answers to many subjective vs. objective questions are available. I also think audiophiles are too concerned with cables. I think these differences wouldn't seem so big if people if used tone controls. I also think access to quality tone controls, would allow people to enjoy the music more and not be so obsessive over the quality of every recording. Tone controls won't help every recording but even changes in your sound environment or emotional state can change how your system sounds to you. I think people need some control over there system. Just my 2 cents.
SY said:
I agree. I think this stuff gets a bit crazy sometimes. But at the same time I do like to hear the best my system can sound, but it's really about the music.
I'm also sure he isn't making it up, but I'm quite sure he's not doing proper controls. Or even elementary controls. That's not his business.
Ok, forget the room, if you plot the frequency response of
any loudspeakers you soon realise that throughout the entire audio spectrum, most of the audio frequencies are being replayed louder or quieter than they should be, and these are not small differences.
Take the Kef 107 ( a highly aclaimed loudspeaker )
A test tone played recorded at -1db to a reference of 70 db
200Hz - 67 db
4kHz - 82db
Naim SBL
Even worse results ..
Now I'd say that a difference of 15db is important, and this is typical of most loudspeakers throughout the entire audio range.
How can it be real, if the original performance is altered in this way ?
Your comment about violins and concert halls is daft. Musical instruments are affected by the venue, but you see there is one important and critical difference, you 're not listening to an inaccurate pair of louspeakers in the concert hall.
SY said:
SY,
You're certainly right about Butte being an Irish town, a friend from work had a private meeting with the President of Ireland in Butte a couple of years ago. He had a batch of pictures of his Grandfather, Father (about 2 years old) and Eamon De Valera taken in 1919 or 1920. As the Irish State Archieves didn't have any pictures of De Valera in Butte they wanted to add them to the collection.
Do they still have the corner of the Union Hall that the Miners blew up in the 60's? It would seem to be a bad idea for the Union Officials to sign off on a contract that the rank and file didn't approve of. Wasn't "that" hall a replacement for the previous one the Miners also blew up?
Best Regards,
TerryO
Unless of course there is a PA system in the hall, and God forbid, if the recording is using a microphone with cheap interconnects to a mixer with cheap TL071 op-amps.
Let's just hope that the pick-up in the musicians' guitar have been orientated the right way, you wouldn't want any stray fields getting in there.
mwaters10 said:
what you're saying of speakers is true of rooms, too.
a violin or piano doesn't sound the same in an anechoic, 'flat' room as it does in a large one. rooms have peaks and dips, reflections and refractions.
speakers are very much like rooms. ie. not flat, and no two are the same.
if distortion and frequency response are the number one and two issues, why do tubes 'sound better' than solid state?
when i say 'decode', what i mean is our brains take the signals from the left and right ear, and then calculate the difference between the two to ascertain the location of the source. if there are many sources spread out over a wide area, then there is more information for the brain to sort out than if it is merely coming from two boxes in a room.
Terry, the hall has been trashed several times, there have been all kinds of riots, shootings, and lootings, but the only time I'm sure it was actually blown up was 1914.
mwaters10 said:
Huh? See 1991 Stereophile measurements. What's laughable about it this is KEF was one of the preeminent FR Uber Alles manufactures of that period. And you entirely miss the point (and apparently SY's) of how the ear interprets room modifications. You do understand the listener as part of the system?
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dukeoyork said:
I would agree with this. And I find it to be true in my experience and experiments. I haven't found many conventional stereo setups that truly sound "real" to my ears. I have had better results with setups closer to binaural. I am a guitarist, played sax, and other instruments and for me the realism isn't exactly there for most stereo. Of course the mixes where the engineer doesn't shoot for an artifice or a surreal sound are not always clear.
Another thing in regards to a decoder is that what we are trying to do with speakers is the opposite of what our brain does. Like a lens. With speakers we are actually attempting an inverse projection of what we usually hear using two channels as a storage medium.
What I'm saying is that loudspeakers alter the sound, regardless of the room. A violin in a concert hall is creating the sound. So the violin in your example is the original and the reference, whereas the loudspeaker only produces a copy of the sound.
What eminiates from a loudpeaker is not real therefore, just a copy with added hi-fi characteristics. If you want to believe you are there, then you must delude yourself and for this you need imagination.
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