What problems? To me it just makes subtle tonality changes more apparent nothing more. The only real problem I can see are temporary switching noises/distrubances. I also see this as the reason it is so hard to compare low res digital with hi res - because the clock has to switch very fast and is rarely distortion free.
Key said:
Problems to tell the difference.Personally I find it much easier to listen to a whole LP side that I know well.First 1-2 tracks to see what's "going on"in general,track 3 to concentrate more carefully on certain sections,and the last two will reveal which the differences are.I am sure however,that different people have their own ways to do the listening.
Not sure where the business about live sound comes from. I was simply pointing out that chairs can change the sound going down the ear 'oles unlike the others which rely on what is going on between the ear 'oles. The reason a stereo sounds like a stereo and musical instruments sound like musical instruments is primarily because they have significantly different directivities giving rise to significantly different indirect sound in a room.SY said:
I'm not so sure that's true. Ever hear live instruments outside? Around a corner? Through an open window? They still sound... live.
SY said:
I would also like to know what happen, one thing I am convinced of is that cables do 'burn in'. With the cables I've tried, it seems like the better cables took the longest to settle.
It happened a few times that I've tried a new cable and it sounded worse than the cable I used at that time, after running it on white noise into dummy loads for a week, it outperformed the existing cable. The strange thing to me is that the largest difference I've perceived this way were with an SPDIF cable between transport and DAC.
It took me some time to perceive what burn-in in cables sounds like. It wasn't the change i expected. Not liking a particular sonic trait of a cable i waited and waited for it to disappear but it never did. Instead the sound changed in other, less significant ways. Not wanting to repeat the frustration i built a simple burn-in device: a micro which generated frequency sweeping square waves. This in turn fed a chipamp and the cable, suitably loaded. I used this for a few days on test cables and frustratingly couldn't hear any difference at all.
Since that time i have a simple but useful rule: never to waste time with cables that don't sound "right" straight out of the box. If break in helps further, great. It certainly doesn't transform them. I am thinking of extending this rule to capacitors and other parts. If something doesn't sound 98% right after two hours of playing music i would rather not use it. Recently i wasted a long time trying to "break-in" some pretty expensive coupling caps. Yes, they changed quite a lot but ultimately remained unlistenable.
Since that time i have a simple but useful rule: never to waste time with cables that don't sound "right" straight out of the box. If break in helps further, great. It certainly doesn't transform them. I am thinking of extending this rule to capacitors and other parts. If something doesn't sound 98% right after two hours of playing music i would rather not use it. Recently i wasted a long time trying to "break-in" some pretty expensive coupling caps. Yes, they changed quite a lot but ultimately remained unlistenable.
Hi,
The main reason for PTFE to be popular (and it's been around for as long as I live) with the cable (dielectric) conscious folk is its very low dielectric absorbtion (DA).
It isn't an easy going material however* and as most tube afficionados know it can mess things up big time during electron tube manufacturing.
Call me whatever you like but I have an aversion to anything "plastic" when it comes to chemicals.
* In order to make a cable sheath out of PTFE, PTFE is dripped onto the bare wire.
Cheers, 😉
tinitus said:
The main reason for PTFE to be popular (and it's been around for as long as I live) with the cable (dielectric) conscious folk is its very low dielectric absorbtion (DA).
It isn't an easy going material however* and as most tube afficionados know it can mess things up big time during electron tube manufacturing.
Call me whatever you like but I have an aversion to anything "plastic" when it comes to chemicals.
* In order to make a cable sheath out of PTFE, PTFE is dripped onto the bare wire.
Cheers, 😉
Really? What are all those crosshead extruders doing at wire manufacturers?
Maillefer will be surprised.
Panicos K said:
See we may be talking about 2 things here. I am talking about 3 tracks from 3 different but extremely similar CDs securely ripped to a hard drive and played back through ASIO. All 3 files were confirmed with inverting cancellation test to be actually different. The difference is there and is factual and easily measurable. And the variables are controlled.
With such tight controls and very subtle differences it is very hard if not impossible for me to differentiate without A/Bing.
In these specific situations I was using foobars ABX. ABX will take two tracks assigned to A and B and then randomly assign those same tracks to X and Y. You then have to identify which matches which blindly. At first it takes me a while to find a spot where I can easily expose a difference with my hearing. Then I switch back and forth until I am certain and then pick the ones that match. I do not believe I would get it correct without this tool as even with this tool I made the occasional mistake. But as soon as I pick up on it the test moves at a rapid pace because I can tell right away the differences.
Again right now I could try to do this same test which I aced with fast ABing and probably not be able to pick the differences as easily because they are just so close and it is largely the contrast of the two that makes it apparent.
Hi,
Could it be that recordings suffer from capacitive time delays besides mechanical shortcomings of speakers?
Let's ask ourselves what sets reproduced music apart from live music??
Cheers, 😉
SY said:
Could it be that recordings suffer from capacitive time delays besides mechanical shortcomings of speakers?
Let's ask ourselves what sets reproduced music apart from live music??
Cheers, 😉
SY said:
There's a topic worthy of a thread alone. Very simple sounds of electronic origins - like modern telephone ringers, pagers, etc. - are easily reproduced with enough accuracy to fool a listener. Conversely, amplified bands often sound live 'around the corner and through the window'.
fdegrove said:
Depends on the specifics. Stereo for instance doesn't have enough coverage unless you sit insanely far into the sweet spot and at that point it is a bit inaccurate. I think the bare minimum to simulating realism is 4 equal spaced speakers in a semi circle. This provides just enough coverage to fool you but this still does not remedy all of the problems usually present on recordings.
For one when was the last time you could really hear reverb in a room? I mean other than as a means for making a person more audible/intelligible you really don't hear the actual reverb. So on most recordings where the reverb gets compressed or mixed into the audible range or is simulated it will contradict what a real event sounds like. I believe reverb should be felt more than heard if you are going for realism.
Also you must realize that you are putting heavy expectations on the whole system. Do you ever put these expectations on say a movie? No because it's obvious from the get go that it is an illusion and you MUST suspend disbelief for it to work. You must loose yourself in the experience and immerse yourself to the point that you think it is you on the screen and not some fictional character. This is easier when we were kids but we some how seem to lose this as we get older - well some do because it is necessary for what they are trying to accomplish.
Not really important
Question is, does it trigger your emotions, or doesnt it
Well, to me thats all its about
Question is, does it trigger your emotions, or doesnt it
Well, to me thats all its about
Hi,
Stereo covers 99% of musical recordings quite accurately provided the recording was done correctly.
Trouble is maybe 1% out the hundreds of thousands recordings is actually done properly.
One of the reasons I gave up on audio is that once you've built a system of sufficient resolution, you'll inevitably start to listen to flawed recordings and less than perfect room acoustics.
While you can improve room acoustics, there's little you can do about recordings.
Recording is producing a product mostly. Nowadays.
To me, recording is just recording an image of an event. A memory of an artists' work.
Call me old-fashioned if you like but I hold quite a collection (our collective memory) that was recorded by just using a simple Decca tree that sound far more life-like than anything else.
You'd be surprised how real that can sound.
Cheers, 😉
Why's that you think?
Stereo covers 99% of musical recordings quite accurately provided the recording was done correctly.
Trouble is maybe 1% out the hundreds of thousands recordings is actually done properly.
One of the reasons I gave up on audio is that once you've built a system of sufficient resolution, you'll inevitably start to listen to flawed recordings and less than perfect room acoustics.
While you can improve room acoustics, there's little you can do about recordings.
Recording is producing a product mostly. Nowadays.
To me, recording is just recording an image of an event. A memory of an artists' work.
Call me old-fashioned if you like but I hold quite a collection (our collective memory) that was recorded by just using a simple Decca tree that sound far more life-like than anything else.
You'd be surprised how real that can sound.
Cheers, 😉
Why's that you think?
fdegrove said:
You are talking about something different than recreation or simulation of a live sound event. I don't know about you but I do NOT hear everything like it is coming from either front left, center, or front right. I hear in 360 degrees not just the 60 directly in front of my face.
I'ld be happy with a convincing simulation in front. Engineering classical performances for live broadcast (long ago) convinced me the major hurdle wasn't 360 surround, it was reproducing the amazing sense of height and 'power from above' of a classically designed hall.
Hi,
Like I said.
A well recorded event.
Let's stick to stereo first and get that right, after that there'll plently of room for follie.
Wait a minute.
They already had it pretty much nailed in the Fifties, didn't they?
Boy, just imagine how good it could have sounded....IF.............
Need details?😀
Like I said.
A well recorded event.
Let's stick to stereo first and get that right, after that there'll plently of room for follie.
Wait a minute.
They already had it pretty much nailed in the Fifties, didn't they?
Boy, just imagine how good it could have sounded....IF.............
Need details?😀
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