John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

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"You'd almost forget that getting closer to the sound as crafted by the artist really means keeping the replay system from changing it. Turning this simple insight into hardware is probably the toughest way to do audio. All simple circuits change the signal audibly, so one has to get to grips with more complicated ones that don't."
So just when is it known that the circuit, simple or complex is not changing the sound as created by the artisans.
In my research I find that systems whilst showing little to no change in measured performance can sound wildly different with tiny changes to system.......which sound is the right sound ???.
In my experiments with cables I find it is perfectly easy to remaster an existing recording with sonic result perfectly according to loopback cable used.
Interestingly loopback cable processed recordings can sound subjectively better than the original recording.
Where does this stop, which sound is the 'real' sound ?.


Dan.
 
So just when is it known that the circuit, simple or complex is not changing the sound as created by the artisans.
In my research I find that systems whilst showing little to no change in measured performance can sound wildly different with tiny changes to system.......which sound is the right sound ???.
In my experiments with cables I find it is perfectly easy to remaster an existing recording with sonic result perfectly according to loopback cable used.
Interestingly loopback cable processed recordings can sound subjectively better than the original recording.
Where does this stop, which sound is the 'real' sound ?.


Dan.

-really means keeping the replay system from changing it.

This is main thing, whole system.
 
It isn't small but it is both transient and unexpected. In the verification through blind testing of audio claims, neither necessarily apply, depending on how you setup your test.

I´d say that "transient" effects (transient in the meaning that it is not consistently there) are quite common in the reproduction of music when not using kind of minimalistic pieces.

But obviously i was writing all the years that "the setup" of a sensory test is the crucial point, it has to be well planned and well executed.
Do you think i could have forgotten about it ? :)

Also obviously a lot of tests did not belong to this category (well planned and executed) but nevertheless negative results were used for wide ranging conclusions.

In fact, the "if it wasn´t detected in the test it can´t be of practical relevance" is a typical example for an ad hoc argument presented to defend
a not so well planned and executed test setup.
 
-really means keeping the replay system from changing it.
This is main thing, whole system.
I'm saying that the system not changing the sound is not possible.
It's down to noise and dynamic behaviours that standard stationary signal testing will not reveal, and every system regardless of quality will cause changes in these parameters.
That said 'changing the sound' can be for the better or for the worse.


Dan.
 
@Jakob2: yes, I wouldn't disagree with anything you wrote in your last post. The point is that once you verify claims, you can reduce the unexpected character of the event (either by using subjects who claim to be able to hear it or by training subjects to hear similar events) and its one-off character (by allowing repetition of short tracks for example).

I don't think this will remove all the problems of audio testing, far from it, but to come back at the origin of the discussion, this will deal with "big" differences and confine the incertitude to "small" differences.
 
I'm saying that the system not changing the sound is not possible.
It's down to noise and dynamic behaviours that standard stationary signal testing will not reveal, and every system regardless of quality will cause changes in these parameters.
That said 'changing the sound' can be for the better or for the worse.


Dan.

How could be for the better, that is subjective. Maybe recording is not so good but it's not for reproduction system to make it better.
Damir
 
I'm trying to help :) Assuming differences, whatever the size, can be reliably detected, what is the next step? Is there one?
What those 2 posters in audio business are trying to do is to smear the value of DBT because it didn't give the results that support their business. If it did, they would be parsing it like the greatest thing since sliced bread.
 
This is from Mola Mola page and I am more to this approach then the KIS, make it simple as possible but not simpler (AE)

"You'd almost forget that getting closer to the sound as crafted by the artist really means keeping the replay system from changing it. Turning this simple insight into hardware is probably the toughest way to do audio."
There is a major problem in this sentence: it starts with a totally unrealistic hypothesis.
If not all, most of the records are highly processed. at each and every moment of the recording/mix process. Interventions on all aspects of sound are based on what participants in the listening process perceive.

And the listenings are done across a system that is far, far, from the perfection and transparency dreamed by Mr. Bruno P.

Worse, the decisions are a compromise in anticipation of future deteriorations that will be made by the broadcasting systems in the future. public. (disc, radio etc.)

The totally transparent system that you could have at home, if God or our banker had mercy on us (Molla Molla is > 10 000$ ???), would be ... a betrayal.
Because the only way to reproduce at home what the creators wanted to do in the studio would be to have at home a system with exactly the same flaws as the one used during the creation process.
 
The totally transparent system that you could have at home, if God or our banker had mercy on us (Molla Molla is > 10 000$ ???), would be ... a betrayal.
Because the only way to reproduce at home what the creators wanted to do in the studio would be to have at home a system with exactly the same flaws as the one used during the creation process.

This is totally strange and confusing thinking for me.
By the way I don't have a money to by anything from Mola Mola or similar expensive products, and that is one of the reason I do it myself, and for old brain training.
 
Personally, I have nothing to do with 'fidelity'.
I am only interested in this matter to my selfish pleasure. It consists in trying to obtain, at home, the results, on a majority of disks (the sources are, as I said, imperfect) the results closest to those which I tried to obtain during my own mixes.

Fortunately, there is a cultural consensus among most sound engineers and musicians, and we can see it here too, so we can do it more or less.
This consensus is probably due to the daily attendance of musical instruments, and to many exchanges of listening impressions, exchanges during which we can not hear ... any number.

We will never be able to stop undergoing the permanent lessons of this bunch of objectivists in crusades to explain how to walk in a straight line in the deep of a thick mangrove ?


Moreover, listening to the current productions, I do not have the impression that the wonderful technological efforts, towards this utopian technical perfection of which they dream, helped to advance the musical artistic creation since the end of the 70's.
What to ask yourself, is not it?
 
This is totally strange and confusing thinking for me.
Ok, imagine a photographer wearing yellow glasses while he is doing the white balance of a photo, on his taste.
The only way to see what he wanted to do is ... to wear the same yellow glasses.

I can give-you an other example. When we want to add some impact to a snare drum, in studio, we use to add some high-medium/trebles on its tracks. This added acceleration, applied to a big high efficiency speaker will produce a solid blast.
Playing the same track in my KEF LS50, only the tweeter are able to produce the requested instant dynamic. The result will be a ridiculous reproduction, highly aggressive, with no 'body' or weight at all.
Notice that, listening to the same track on my PC speakers, that are just two little full range speakers + a sub, I will not have the same expected impact, but the added medium/treeble will compensate the lack of those tweeters in their response curve. The tonal balance will be nice.

Happily, sound engineers in studios do not have a lot of tools to manipulate the instant dynamic. So something of the original instrument resists at their tortures ;-) And that is exactly the place where we can improve our audio designs. Its improves the separation, easy listening, litle details, without affecting the tonal balance.
I imagine I could live with my Keff (I will definitely resell them) if Kef had offered-us internal tone controls designed to make the correct descending curve instead of this stupid horizontal one. or to sculpt the response curve as we want.

I hope to have been more clear ?

By the way I don't have a money to by anything from Mola Mola or similar expensive products, and that is one of the reason I do it myself, and for old brain training.
So most of us are. And, on a single question of principles, I will never buy a raspberry + a nice story + a well looking heavy box for such an amount, when so many people on earth are starving.
 
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Why? Mixes don't occur in isolation. It may be easiest to get a good result when the song is good, the arrangement is good, the orchestration is good, the performers are good, the recording equipment is good, etc. Then one only has to document the performance, not work so hard to ameliorate problems.
Gosh, that has to be the most subjective post ever :D
 
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