I knew that that anti-gravity thing had to have some simple explanation ...Yes that was one of the silliest theories I ever saw, as if we had known nothing about solid state physics before the saucer crash etc.
I hear they did have some nice cables though
Very nice call, Nigel. Just had this running on the PC monitors, and demonstrates the malarkey about YouTube not being good enough is just that. Needed miles more SPL from these little speakers, volume hard against the bump stops, the power supplies obviously collapsing under the stress. But, put this through a system capable of comfortably, cleanly doing the dynamic range at realistic volumes and you should be able to easily blow your house down. This, is what it's all about - there are no excuses for the crappy sound one so often encounters ...
Missed commenting on this earlier, and that was to say that this is where the turnaround occurs, where "good sound" emerges. A conventional, causal recording of speakers in many situations will be a "horror", because the playback system is not working properly; but, get the quality far enough up the line and this no longer happens. This is when one can casually walk around one's living quarters, doing bits and pieces - and the part of your brain still registering the sound it hears notes that all is in order - you don't have to concentrate to hear how "good" the sound is ...
I might take the opportunity to point out my feeble attempts to do this, which are still up: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/blog...diophile-perhaps-just-me-has-gone-before.html. Do take note that the machinery and technique used is very primitive, especially in the area of recorder overload ...
Exactly, Ezavalla, that's hitting the nail on the head.
Hard core audiophiles have a problem accepting that the software we use as a source is already tainted in absolute terms, if for no other reason than at least because we are hearing not what was, but what the sound engineer made it sound like. Not to even mention what it had to pass through before it got to us.
The search for perfection, as is any absolute, is doomed from the start. In the end, we settle on what sound good to us, on our systems, in our rooms. Not to even mention the odd setups people use, like marrying a notoriously difficult speaker to a 50 or 60 WPC tube amp. By "difficult", I refer to pretty inefficient speakers which really do need serious power, with an evil impedance modulus, demanding yet more current. Then you bring over a decent transistor amp, and they are amazed.
Hard core audiophiles have a problem accepting that the software we use as a source is already tainted in absolute terms, if for no other reason than at least because we are hearing not what was, but what the sound engineer made it sound like. Not to even mention what it had to pass through before it got to us.
The search for perfection, as is any absolute, is doomed from the start. In the end, we settle on what sound good to us, on our systems, in our rooms. Not to even mention the odd setups people use, like marrying a notoriously difficult speaker to a 50 or 60 WPC tube amp. By "difficult", I refer to pretty inefficient speakers which really do need serious power, with an evil impedance modulus, demanding yet more current. Then you bring over a decent transistor amp, and they are amazed.
Remarkably, even on "poor" recordings, enough of the signature qualities of the instruments used are captured, in spite of the best efforts of the sound engineers to mangle them! I have been surprised many times over the years to find recordings which I deemed at some stage to be unrecoverable, will come to life, will allow one to comfortably access the musical qualities ... if the system is of sufficient quality ...
Hence my motto -- "There is no such thing as a bad recording" ...
Hence my motto -- "There is no such thing as a bad recording" ...
Sorry Frank, but I disagree.
There are some really awful recordings which simply cannot be returned to any "normal" state without hevy processing.
While I agree that the system should be one of high resolution, that should not be used as an excuse for poor recordings, quite simply because not too many people have high resolution systems at home. A truly good recording will shine (in comparison with others) even in a El Cheapo system, even if at a lower quality point in comparison with a really good system.
Let me tell you about real sound . It is the same problems as Bible bashing . I always say I wasn't there . To be clear I am neither atheist not agnostic , where I am after that is not clear to me . I never met Caruso either . I hold opinions on all of that like any other man . If you don't , you should . Albeit I like the jacket Caruso typically wore . Fair do's .
With live recording I can do better . Using the purest technique I can get an interplay which is the best memory of the event . It will use two mics . Elastoplast and string . A child's school protractor . It will have two guide strings for positioning . The front two to do tilt and swivel . That is mostly as it is not very accurate when using string . The sound is then down to microphones used . In the distant past it was a Sony TC 377 tape recorder . To be very simple about it the microphones to put the TC377 to shame would have been out of my budget . Hiss was regulated by gentle gain riding . You would think the other end the big problem . Yes and no . Simple timing notes say expect a tidal wave in 5 minutes 37 seconds from rehearsal notes taken .
The sound I got was unlike commercial recordings . The dynamic range seemed real . The gain riding helps the ears beleive that . It is pure . Where it fails is it is like a film star without make up . The almost horrible echos are heard , far from horrible to me . It is the interplay that is so hard to capture . Making sure it is not eliminated early in the process by close miking .
It can not be real as we do not listen 12 feet off the floor where my microphones would be placed typically . So that is the battle lost . Also if we record where I would usually sit the sound is dreadful .
How to go commercial . I suspect the 78's set the trend . Even if people know real sound they like commercial sound . In the 1910 period there was no choice . I feel we never changed the rules . Jazz and pop to me have slightly different rules . Jazz is the most obliging of all and reality is close to being possible . Jazz and hi fi are almost products of each other ( think also guitar amps ) .
String is better than microphone stands . A fire officer banned my string because it wasn't in a risk assessment . I did it for nothing so was a bit narked . Microphone stands can make a piano sound like it is underwater . Pay loads of money to prove string is better ?
Commercial is to blend in other Microphones . This is like the apple pie you buy in a supermarket . Tastes OK and has 50 things homemade never has .
Layers . If the blending goes wrong the layers burr . Admittedly they should . Thing is , better a expose layers than have time distortion ( echos lost ) .
When sound is very good you can sense the microphone diaphragm . Not a welcome thing but logically you should hear it . Needless to say the system has to be good to do this . Cheap good headphones hint at it .
We were told the 1959 Decca recording Perter Grimes was the one to study if wanting good commercial sound that seems real . Decca went to great trouble to use good sounding buildings .
This piece of music below is about as complex as one can get without reality being a problem . Get it right and it has warmth this vibrancy . Get it wrong and it is pure acid . The second extract shows how it changes due to the needs . Same people , same time , same everything except notes . At one point harmonics of the bridge are used . It is well beyond magic when hearing the harmonics . Like a wooden flute except using the bow . The composers notes say all one needs to know . That's all the engineer is required to do capture the intentions . Ravel wrote wonderful instructions and the music is cheap unlike a complete Beethoven interpretation . Thus genuine Ravel is easy and Beethoven hardly exists in that form . Ravel was natty dresser I think I read , sort makes sense he would be . Ravel orchestral pieces can be played by good orchestras very well . It is that the complete scores are available at moderate prices that helps . Beethoven is often done by listening to CD's on equipment we wouldn't call hi fi . Musicians seldom have good hi fi's .
Aiana String Quartet - "Ravel String Quartet in F major": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist - YouTube
Ravel String Quartet in F - 1st movement - YouTube
With live recording I can do better . Using the purest technique I can get an interplay which is the best memory of the event . It will use two mics . Elastoplast and string . A child's school protractor . It will have two guide strings for positioning . The front two to do tilt and swivel . That is mostly as it is not very accurate when using string . The sound is then down to microphones used . In the distant past it was a Sony TC 377 tape recorder . To be very simple about it the microphones to put the TC377 to shame would have been out of my budget . Hiss was regulated by gentle gain riding . You would think the other end the big problem . Yes and no . Simple timing notes say expect a tidal wave in 5 minutes 37 seconds from rehearsal notes taken .
The sound I got was unlike commercial recordings . The dynamic range seemed real . The gain riding helps the ears beleive that . It is pure . Where it fails is it is like a film star without make up . The almost horrible echos are heard , far from horrible to me . It is the interplay that is so hard to capture . Making sure it is not eliminated early in the process by close miking .
It can not be real as we do not listen 12 feet off the floor where my microphones would be placed typically . So that is the battle lost . Also if we record where I would usually sit the sound is dreadful .
How to go commercial . I suspect the 78's set the trend . Even if people know real sound they like commercial sound . In the 1910 period there was no choice . I feel we never changed the rules . Jazz and pop to me have slightly different rules . Jazz is the most obliging of all and reality is close to being possible . Jazz and hi fi are almost products of each other ( think also guitar amps ) .
String is better than microphone stands . A fire officer banned my string because it wasn't in a risk assessment . I did it for nothing so was a bit narked . Microphone stands can make a piano sound like it is underwater . Pay loads of money to prove string is better ?
Commercial is to blend in other Microphones . This is like the apple pie you buy in a supermarket . Tastes OK and has 50 things homemade never has .
Layers . If the blending goes wrong the layers burr . Admittedly they should . Thing is , better a expose layers than have time distortion ( echos lost ) .
When sound is very good you can sense the microphone diaphragm . Not a welcome thing but logically you should hear it . Needless to say the system has to be good to do this . Cheap good headphones hint at it .
We were told the 1959 Decca recording Perter Grimes was the one to study if wanting good commercial sound that seems real . Decca went to great trouble to use good sounding buildings .
This piece of music below is about as complex as one can get without reality being a problem . Get it right and it has warmth this vibrancy . Get it wrong and it is pure acid . The second extract shows how it changes due to the needs . Same people , same time , same everything except notes . At one point harmonics of the bridge are used . It is well beyond magic when hearing the harmonics . Like a wooden flute except using the bow . The composers notes say all one needs to know . That's all the engineer is required to do capture the intentions . Ravel wrote wonderful instructions and the music is cheap unlike a complete Beethoven interpretation . Thus genuine Ravel is easy and Beethoven hardly exists in that form . Ravel was natty dresser I think I read , sort makes sense he would be . Ravel orchestral pieces can be played by good orchestras very well . It is that the complete scores are available at moderate prices that helps . Beethoven is often done by listening to CD's on equipment we wouldn't call hi fi . Musicians seldom have good hi fi's .
Aiana String Quartet - "Ravel String Quartet in F major": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist - YouTube
Ravel String Quartet in F - 1st movement - YouTube
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Very true. And for any replay system, the accuracy is how accurate it reproduced whatever is in/on the source, stream, CD, DVD, what have you. That's all you can hope for. The original event is gone, poof, disappeared into the past.
If the recording has captured that piano badly, there's nothing you can do on the reproduction side to make it 'right' again.
jan
I have some CDs that are absolutely unlistenable. Noisy, dstorting, awfull sound stage, bad balance between instruments and voices, and instruments and voices wandering all the time all over the place.
And don't get me started on some awfull vinyl I have.
If such a terrible CD sounds the same on your system as a well-recorded 'good' CD I suggest you have some more work to do.
jan
We can agree to disagree,
...I have a stack of "awful" recordings on hand, ready to hit the airwaves whenever I feel I'm getting into a 'good zone' - these bring me back to earth straightaway if I've been foolin' myself ...
An example of this is a no name label, Ike and Tina Turner compilation, picked up at an opportunity shop for a dollar - this has live tracks done at club gigs, using some cheap reel to reel to keep a record: midrange and treble to strip paint off the wall when the system's not right, but when the gods are smiling it comes together, and you're there!!
To me, Decca Phase 4 stereo LPs from the late 60ies are still the yardstick I use to measure all others.
Admittedly, their choice of musical material may have been questionable here and there, but there was a very reasonable choice, something for just about everyone. Not cheap, but for a change, something that played better and bigger music than it price.
From U.S. of A., I really liked some Mercury (Rod Stewart "Every Picture Tells A Story"), A&M (Best of Joan Baez) and CBS recordings (Bridge Over Troubled Water, to name just one).
Admittedly, their choice of musical material may have been questionable here and there, but there was a very reasonable choice, something for just about everyone. Not cheap, but for a change, something that played better and bigger music than it price.
From U.S. of A., I really liked some Mercury (Rod Stewart "Every Picture Tells A Story"), A&M (Best of Joan Baez) and CBS recordings (Bridge Over Troubled Water, to name just one).
It won't sound the 'same' as a well-recorded item, it can never do that ... what it does do is give the ear sufficient information so that it can internally filter away the "bad stuff" and resolve the musical content that's at the heart of the recording, the thing you're interested in. If the obnoxious qualities are too overwhelming, because the playback system is adding to the mess, then the brain gives up, and it's 'unlistenable' to ...
Frank, I owned a tape deck since 1966. In 1981, I bought a bloody big Philips deck, some 60 lbs of it, and using rather average nominally Uher but really Sennheiser microphones, I recorded a friend playing a classic guitar in my room. The mics were standard, unexcitiing fare, with a usable response out to around 13 kHz.
Played back again in the same room, over AR5 loudspeakers driven by a reVox A78 integrated amp rated at 50 WRMS/8 Ohms, it WAS the real deal. If there were any discrepanicies, neithe he nor I could hear them. All on Maxell MXII tape, fairly standard fare.
All I can boast about is that the deck was kept in literally superb state, regularly demagnetized by a Sony 60 Watt (sic!) head demagnetizer, and that the deck itself could be calibrated for most tapes, plus the ability to run at 15 ips as per NAB or IEC equalization at a flick of a switch.
The exercise simply proved just how darnm good a recording can sound, but by the same token, what it has to go through in a normal commercial process of being tran sferred to the LP. SO MUCH was lost, it made me want to cry.
The CD had so much promise, and it degenerated to popular horse dung in no time.
Speaking of which, perhaps someone here can help. About a year ago, I was surfing and ran into a site which discussed the quality of CD recordings, They had a "Best of" and "Worst of" lists. According to these lists, No.1 on the "Worst of" list CD spends 99% of its time in pure clipping. No.1 on the "Best of" list was one of seemingly endless Greatest Hits of ABBA, the number of which I did copy down (I can look it up if required) and did purchase that edition. One would have to be stone deaf not to hear the almost amazing quality of the recording.
Hopefully, somebody will have a link to that site ... please?
Played back again in the same room, over AR5 loudspeakers driven by a reVox A78 integrated amp rated at 50 WRMS/8 Ohms, it WAS the real deal. If there were any discrepanicies, neithe he nor I could hear them. All on Maxell MXII tape, fairly standard fare.
All I can boast about is that the deck was kept in literally superb state, regularly demagnetized by a Sony 60 Watt (sic!) head demagnetizer, and that the deck itself could be calibrated for most tapes, plus the ability to run at 15 ips as per NAB or IEC equalization at a flick of a switch.
The exercise simply proved just how darnm good a recording can sound, but by the same token, what it has to go through in a normal commercial process of being tran sferred to the LP. SO MUCH was lost, it made me want to cry.
The CD had so much promise, and it degenerated to popular horse dung in no time.
Speaking of which, perhaps someone here can help. About a year ago, I was surfing and ran into a site which discussed the quality of CD recordings, They had a "Best of" and "Worst of" lists. According to these lists, No.1 on the "Worst of" list CD spends 99% of its time in pure clipping. No.1 on the "Best of" list was one of seemingly endless Greatest Hits of ABBA, the number of which I did copy down (I can look it up if required) and did purchase that edition. One would have to be stone deaf not to hear the almost amazing quality of the recording.
Hopefully, somebody will have a link to that site ... please?
I finally have system that can play any recording . Sometimes it is laughable how bad some are . Sometimes why is obvious . The pop of the microphone says plenty . At least I don't think it would sound better on my valve radio these days .
When I was first married a very attractive slightly older lady lived up the road from me . I had by mistake told her she was attractive . She wanted to do some building work and wanted our millionaire neighbour to give up some land for nothing . When she said I knew him I said looking at her legs that her credentials were impeccable for talking to Jim .
Often my wife went away and both I and the lady were alone . One night she invited me to listen to music . I was determined to be a good boy and was . It was then I learnt a great lesson about hi fi . She had a standard music centre . She apologized and said could I bring myself down to listening to something so humble . You know it sounded great . Later in life I found out why . Simplicity and basically correct engineering . My ex wife wasn't worth my good behaviour . If only .
When I was first married a very attractive slightly older lady lived up the road from me . I had by mistake told her she was attractive . She wanted to do some building work and wanted our millionaire neighbour to give up some land for nothing . When she said I knew him I said looking at her legs that her credentials were impeccable for talking to Jim .
Often my wife went away and both I and the lady were alone . One night she invited me to listen to music . I was determined to be a good boy and was . It was then I learnt a great lesson about hi fi . She had a standard music centre . She apologized and said could I bring myself down to listening to something so humble . You know it sounded great . Later in life I found out why . Simplicity and basically correct engineering . My ex wife wasn't worth my good behaviour . If only .
Yes in that sense we are all gullible - a piece of music I like can 'come together' on my kitchen radio.
jan
I guess you're talking about the loudness wars ... I don't worry about anything much from the last 15 years or so, the musical content is not my cup of tea really ...
Plenty of sites out there that have lists of good and bad, just have to work through the Google results ...
All time baddie is the Iggy Pop remastered "Raw Power" I believe - great square wave test signals ...!!
Edit: Heavily compressed material replayed correctly is extremely aggressive sounding - it's fatiguing not because it distorts, but because it subjectively registers like an emotional battering ram - like having someone talking VERY LOUDLY ALL THE TIME ...
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If CD had used Nicam encoding it would have been better . Nicam has some pumping noise at - 78 dB if 13 Bit . That is 10 bits music and 3 bit coding . With 16 bits it could have been great . I have a hunch no physical contact is not CD's best feature . Just think if USB sticks have been available . CD would never have happened . CD is a throw back to 1888 . Apparently pressing the disc was still No 1 priority when invented . Making Cassettes was a fools game. Expensive and less than excellent . They were not going to repeat that mistake . CD , BS that lasts for ever . Even the last bit was lies .
Squarewaves from CD stop at about 1 kHz . The Fourier series needs about the 19 th harmonic in the sequence to be square . ( 44.1 /2 ) / 19 . Such a wave looks like an amp with mild ringing . Slew rates ??????? Where , when , how ? To restate my case . Slew rates matter . It is simple current to drive the VAS . There is no music that demands it . If it were not so tweeters would last minutes .
Squarewaves from CD stop at about 1 kHz . The Fourier series needs about the 19 th harmonic in the sequence to be square . ( 44.1 /2 ) / 19 . Such a wave looks like an amp with mild ringing . Slew rates ??????? Where , when , how ? To restate my case . Slew rates matter . It is simple current to drive the VAS . There is no music that demands it . If it were not so tweeters would last minutes .
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