Never thought much of MIT cables. Now I can see why
😉
If they start adding sh** it can only sound sh**. 😀
Must be that American English. 😉 'Out of the black' is a visual expression with a specific connotation from which presumably the audio version draws its analogy. 'Popping out of the black' and 'crystal clear air' have different meanings. My understanding of the audio sense has always been Kurt's, the effect similar to a very low threshold and very aggressive gate, and I as well consider it an effect rather than an attribute. Since it can be impressive and dramatic many appear to weight it otherwise.
Large enclosed spaces are always alive with sound, unlike an anechoic chamber. They're never 'black'. If the audio audio industry has used 'black' as 'quiet' for all these years it's the oddest analogy in my experience. If that's the case, what do reviewers call the effect I describe above?
Is "black background" lack of system noise, or lack of reverb from the listening room? Either way a speaker cable wont make any difference!
And in all my years in studios, Ive never heard this expression. Which makes me think its more marketing speak.
In the first link, it is looking like the box cuts off HF...? Hard to tell by the pictures.
Peter
Most reviewers used to use this term just as I described it. Never heard it used in any other form before. Maybe I hang with older audiophile types. Emerging from a black background always meant the low level details were more obvious, as the noise floor was reduced to a great degree vs other similar systems. As I stated sounds emerge from a "black background" (less noisy). Without black there would be no color example. Noise lessens the intensity of the black background, lessening the contrast. The Bybee Purifiers offer an excellent example of this. Pretty common term in audio since I started anyway back in 1980 or so. Doubt that it has changed, but I do not read the rags much anymore.
"Crystal clear" is not a term that is used very often at least I do not hear it very often. This to me means "bright and tilted" to the high end, so to draw attention to the treble region.
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Not marketing but it is used extensively by audio reviewers and audiophile listeners to describe the scenario that I stated earlier. I do not understand why some of you are trying to equate it to an "anechoic chamber" though. That is "dead sounding" to me with that type of analogy. Rather not listen in that type of environment 🙂
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With no intent of discounting your experience cbdb, having worked with production engineers for a generation mine is audio and production are very much non-overlapping magisteria. I can't recall one producer describing sound in terms more detailed than boomy/thin, bright/dull, noisy and distorted. Or even using the term 'detailed'. Production and home audio and related but production engineers, musicians and audiophiles approach sound in very different ways.
If a system change ever caused for me an impression (spurious or not) of 'different black level', it's always been topology or circuit components, never cables.
Curly, I'll see your 1980's and raise you a mid-Seventies. 😀 You might be right, for me using 'black' as 'quiet' is still nonsensical on multiple levels.
If a system change ever caused for me an impression (spurious or not) of 'different black level', it's always been topology or circuit components, never cables.
Curly, I'll see your 1980's and raise you a mid-Seventies. 😀 You might be right, for me using 'black' as 'quiet' is still nonsensical on multiple levels.
Why not just call it what it is: noise floor. (or S/N) Oh yeah,Marketers.
And one more time, cables dont add any significant noise! And dont start with the bybye(money) filter ** again.
And one more time, cables dont add any significant noise! And dont start with the bybye(money) filter ** again.
Have you ever listen to them before? I know, you can not measure what they are doing, so you do not believe 🙂 I am so glad that I do not try to fit things into little boxes and know what things do before i even give them a chance.
One reason that therm came about is to allow lay people a means to better understand what is happening. Noise floor means something to you as you understand what it is, but the average magazine reader could care less about "noise floor" or understand what it means to music listening. The analogy I presented, makes it easy for someone to "see' what you are trying to describe in words.
The job of producers is the music not usually the sound quality (and the music, IMO is more important), quality is the recording engineers responsibility (but many a producer will undermine the engineer(loudness wars)), and when engineers compare gear they do use terms like detail, imaging, air, presence, grain,resolution etc. (at least the ones I know do.) Producers on the other hand: "can you make the bass more chocolatey" or "can you make everything louder than everything else".
Using words to describe audio is like using words to describe poetry, the people in the conversation need common ground (which should be obvious from this black background talk). I see the same words on these forums meaning different things than in the studio. We need a dictionary of sound adjectives.
For a salesman your kinda condecending to lay people. Is noise such a hard concept to understand (or signals getting lost in it)? And as is obvious from the past few pages your term is anything but clear, and I think thats the point!
Because it's not noise. I haven't had a system with audible noise at the listening position since my Bell & Howell portable cassette deck. And one more time to forestall further misunderstanding, in bold:
Are you really arguing I don't recognize the sound of noise?
Looks like I need to be more careful too, in my sphere of commercial production the terms producer and engineer are interchangeable, a bit of consternation for those of us with iron rings.
Arguably true of any perception. To give Pearson his due, that was his original intent 30+ years ago with TAS. The degree of that success is evident here. 😀
"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture" is my favorite versions of that.
One of my favorite quotes of Hendrix's is kind of like the producers you talk about.
"Well there's one song on there we did a lot of sound on...We put the guitar through the Leslie speaker of an organ, and it sounds like " Jelly Bread"" Hendrix
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