Why would someone like LP?
Helen Schmidt
I've been lurking here recently. There was a post by a self-described
"newbie" on CD vs. vinyl, which actually leads to a very important
point. I repeat the post here:
-------------
My simple question is that the analog vs digital signal comparison does
make sense to me and analog technically should have much better dynamic
range, then why is it when I listen to a turntable, it sounds the
opposite? Especially the highs always seem cut off where as I throw in
any
CD and the extreme high/low range sound much fuller. It's funny because
I
know the whole argument is that vinyl is supposed to sound fuller. Is
it
because I have to listen to vinyl on some $10k turntable? I've only
listened on some high-end Technics and Stanton tables.
Also the fact that there's pops and clicks on vinyl from dust is
extremely
annoying to me even when you clean it ever 2 seconds.
------------
The question is basically, why would someone want to listen to vinyl,
with its obvious flaws?
The quick answer: because these listeners are relating the external
stimuli to a broader range of internal percepts.
Traditionally, science has investigated only the external
manifestations of response to stimuli, because only the external can be
observed in an objective way. Internal percepts (the personal
"experience of what happens") have remained off-limits to hard science.
But philosophers and Zen monks have always been able to investigate
internal percepts. Musicians and all creative artists are carrying out
their own investigations, in a way.
What is obvious to those who care to introspect is that "listening is
not listening." The crucial question is, "What are you listening for?"
It is also obvious to those who care to introspect that different
people draw on a different set of potential concepts; that is, concepts
stored in memory that can be "activated" by stimuli. New listeners to
music generally relate music to potential concepts that they have
already developed from non-musical experience with sound: "loud,"
"soft," "fast," "slow". The "beat" may seem a musical concept, but it
is closely related to the heartbeat and other phenomena of nature, so
that potential concept of "beat" is sitting in unconscious memory
waiting to be activated even in the non-musician.
On the other hand, very experienced listeners of music, and even more
so musicians, have more highly developed abstractions as potential
concepts. An experienced listener hears aspect of form and subtle
nuances of expression: this is an entirely different set of potential
concepts from the beginner. Again, it is obvious from introspection
that as experience develops, the earlier potential concepts diminish in
importance and are replaced by more abstract potential concepts.
In other words, the surface noise of an LP corresponds to a relatively
juvenile potential concept, which is immediately derived from normal,
non-musical experience. The beginner will weight this concept highly,
and since it is normally a non-musical experience, it will interfere
quite a lot with listening. In the experienced listener, the weight of
this concept has diminished greatly and is superceded by the abstract
concepts of musical expression and form. In simple terms, what this
boils down to is that the experienced listener "hears through" the
noise into the music.
This kinds of experience seems impossible to the beginner; they simply
haven't developed the necessary potential concepts yet, just as a child
wouldn't normally have the ability to comprehend something abstract
like subtle competition in a political debate.
I've noticed that the "objectivists" here are extremely naive,
philosophically. They don't understand and don't even acknowledge the
knowledge to be gained about perception through introspection. In fact,
I predict they will respond to this post by demeaning the whole idea
and claiming the superiority of "objective evidence." This
misunderstands so many things, the main thing being that life is not
"objective evidence versus introspection;" the two can and must be
integrated. I will postpone this discussion for now, but later I can
explain how the conclusions of so-called "objective" experiments
collapse over the shaky foundation of introspective naivety.
Helen
Thepork...@aol.com
> Hi,
>
> I've been lurking here recently. There was a post by a self-described
> "newbie" on CD vs. vinyl, which actually leads to a very important
> point. I repeat the post here:
>
> -------------
> My simple question is that the analog vs digital signal comparison does
> make sense to me and analog technically should have much better dynamic
> range, then why is it when I listen to a turntable, it sounds the
> opposite? Especially the highs always seem cut off where as I throw in
> any
> CD and the extreme high/low range sound much fuller. It's funny because
> I
> know the whole argument is that vinyl is supposed to sound fuller.
I don't believe that is the whole argument at all. Generally the
argument is that the LPs sound more natural and less fatiguing.
Is
> it
> because I have to listen to vinyl on some $10k turntable? I've only
> listened on some high-end Technics and Stanton tables.
IMO high-end Technics and Stanton tables is an oxymoron. Those tables
just aint high-end. I would not say that 10k is a natural turning point
but better performance does cost money. You ae not hearing anywhee near
the best LP playback has to offer with those tables in the formula.
>
> Also the fact that there's pops and clicks on vinyl from dust is
> extremely
> annoying to me even when you clean it ever 2 seconds.
If the vinyl is truly clean and o have pops and clicks that are that
intrusive you are likely dealing with damaged vinyl and/or serious
misracking.
> ------------
>
> The question is basically, why would someone want to listen to vinyl,
> with its obvious flaws?
Because of it's advantages. Trust me, if there were none I wouldn't
bother. Back in the eighties when CDs first came out I was one of the
first to jump on the band wagon. It was CDs that actually got me
interested in audio. Imagine that. My first CD player, a 14 bit job
from Yamaha pretty much killed my Yamaha rack system turntable with
it's freebee P-mount cartridge. During my ventures into auditioning
better equipment to go with this wonderful new technology I went ahead
and bought a 75 dollar Ortofon P-mount catridge to replace the give
away one that came with the Yamaha rack job. Well this minor upgrade
made the rack job quite competetive with the CD player. I didn't like
this at all. Next step was to replace that 14 bit player (a poor choice
but Steeo Review said it wouldn't make a difference) with a 16 bit
Yamaha player. Well CDs were once again king. In my adventures through
high end audio shops I came across one vendor that swore LPs were
vastly superior to CDs. I laughed I scoffed and even ridiculed the
idea. But I agreed to take the pepsi challenge using my CDs, my CD
player and, gasp, my old LPs and his TT on his system (one that I
eventually bought more or less). I remember telling the guy there aint
no way dragging a rock over a piece of plastic is going to outperform
digital. No way. Well, I was served up several helpings of crow and a
side of humble pie. It was a most disturbing revelation. It literlly
left me numb. My belief system had been completely turned up side down.
I thought sources would not be an issue in my quest for better sound.
It made no sense that such a crude method of playback would be so much
more realistic. The thought of the added expense made the whole thing
even more disturbing. But I could not unhear what I had just heard. I
didn't like that reality but I accepted it. Eventually I came to like
the idea that I could actually do even better than I had with CDs.
Scott Wheeler
Buster Mudd
FWIW, I've been a professional musician for over 30 years, and a
professional audio engineer for nearly 28. I have indeed learned to
"hear through" the clicks, pops, & other surface noise artifacts of
vinyl playback in order to appreciate aspects of form and subtle
nuances of musical expression.
But I choose not to. Those same aspects of form and subtle nuances of
musical expression are just as accurately conveyed in a good digital
recording of the performance, and a well-mastered compact disc happily
yields all that information without the additional surface noise that I
would otherwise have to "hear through". Why bother adding an obstacle
to enjoyment, even if it's an obstacle which through time & experience
I've learned to ignore?
jjn...@sonic.net
> The question is basically, why would someone want to listen to vinyl,
> with its obvious flaws?
> The quick answer: because these listeners are relating the external
> stimuli to a broader range of internal percepts.
A more to the point answer without writing 5 more paragraphs would be that
there is music on LP that folks want to listen to that will never be re-
released on any other medium. Some of them are horrible recordings in
terrible condition that one puts up with just for the music and/or the
performance or just sheer historical value. I can't speak for others,
but that's what I do.
> I've noticed that the "objectivists" here are extremely naive,
> philosophically. They don't understand and don't even acknowledge the
> knowledge to be gained about perception through introspection. In fact,
> I predict they will respond to this post by demeaning the whole idea
> and claiming the superiority of "objective evidence." This
> misunderstands so many things, the main thing being that life is not
> "objective evidence versus introspection;" the two can and must be
> integrated. I will postpone this discussion for now, but later I can
> explain how the conclusions of so-called "objective" experiments
> collapse over the shaky foundation of introspective naivety.
Actually, there's introspective naivety from both 'camps.' I know a
number of folks who don't have a CD player because they are convinced
of the subjective sonic superiority of LP and invest a considerable
amount of money in equipment to play it. They are missing out on a
lot of quality new music and performances. And I'm not referring to
the Top 40.
Steven Sullivan
> Hi,
<snip>
The idea that 'audiophiles', who are defined by their gear fetishism, are
always 'listening' the way you describe, in a sort of Zen trance trance of
'not listening' , rather than listening 'analytically' for how stuff
*sounds*, is laughable. It suggest you aren;t at all familiar with
audiophile culture.
Bye.
Stewart Pinkerton
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Well, that's *one* quick answer, but not IMHO *the* quick answer.
>Traditionally, science has investigated only the external
>manifestations of response to stimuli, because only the external can be
>observed in an objective way. Internal percepts (the personal
>"experience of what happens") have remained off-limits to hard science.
Not true. The science of psychoacoustics most certainly investigates
"the personal experience of what happens". That's why we now have
advanced compression algorithms such as MP3 and AAC - they were
developed by the application of hard science to subjective
experiences.
>But philosophers and Zen monks have always been able to investigate
>internal percepts. Musicians and all creative artists are carrying out
>their own investigations, in a way.
And so are numerous scientists, in a well-controlled and rigourous
way.............
Quite so - and the even more experienced listener discovers that with
more advanced media such as CD, such 'hearing through' is not
required, making for a more relaxed appreciation of the true
subtleties of the performance........
Not all of us who prefer other media to vinyl are inexperienced
listeners, indeed many of us heaved mighty sighs of relief when a
superior medium appeared in 1982. at last, we could closely approach
the sound quality of the master tape, after all these years of
suffering the grating of rocks dragged through plastic canyons!
>This kinds of experience seems impossible to the beginner; they simply
>haven't developed the necessary potential concepts yet, just as a child
>wouldn't normally have the ability to comprehend something abstract
>like subtle competition in a political debate.
>
>I've noticed that the "objectivists" here are extremely naive,
>philosophically.
Have you, indeed? :-)
Have you also noticed the extreme naivety of the 'subjectivists' who
refuse to acknowledge well-known problems with sighted evaluation, to
quote but one example?
> They don't understand and don't even acknowledge the
>knowledge to be gained about perception through introspection. In fact,
>I predict they will respond to this post by demeaning the whole idea
>and claiming the superiority of "objective evidence."
One can of course obtain plenty of objective evidence regarding the
introspective experiences of test subjects. As noted above, this is
how perceptual coding was developed. You seem to have a very naive
view of how science works, philosophically.
> This
>misunderstands so many things, the main thing being that life is not
>"objective evidence versus introspection;" the two can and must be
>integrated.
Quite so - see above.
> I will postpone this discussion for now, but later I can
>explain how the conclusions of so-called "objective" experiments
>collapse over the shaky foundation of introspective naivety.
Yeah, riiiiight............. :-)
Perhaps you should build a better foundation for your own knowledge of
how some very basic audio concepts have been developed by hard
sciencists using data gathered in subjective tests, before presuming
that others are more naive than yourself.
--
Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering
jeffc
news:d9uhq...@news2.newsguy.com...
> It made no sense that such a crude method of playback would be so much
> more realistic.
Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
which is pure. The analogy the approximation of an integral (area under a
curve) by using intervals, vs. actual calculus, which simply gets it right
from the start. I say "technically" because it is, or will be, possible to
get the approximation so good that you can't tell the difference. Unless
the iPod crowd makes it financially unfeasible to do so in the market.
Helen Schmidt
> I remember telling the guy there aint
> no way dragging a rock over a piece of plastic is going to outperform
> digital. No way. Well, I was served up several helpings of crow and a
> side of humble pie. It was a most disturbing revelation. It literlly
> left me numb. My belief system had been completely turned up side down.
> I thought sources would not be an issue in my quest for better sound.
> It made no sense that such a crude method of playback would be so much
> more realistic. The thought of the added expense made the whole thing
> even more disturbing. But I could not unhear what I had just heard. I
> didn't like that reality but I accepted it. Eventually I came to like
> the idea that I could actually do even better than I had with CDs.
>
>
> Scott Wheeler
Hi Scott,
I agree that LP is more lifelike. One of the areas where LP is more
lifelike is its ability to convey music in the changing signal. With
LP, I experience more vividly the musical percepts that correspond to
dynamic features of the signal (change over time). When the music is
suddenly quiet, I not only hear that it is quiet, but I experience a
sense that something compelling has happened. The music is tender,
spiritual, dramatic.. that is, it resonates with broader parts of my
experience as a human.
It triggers the brain systems that respond to anything tender in the
world, anything spiritual, anything dramatic. With CD, when the music
gets quiet, I mostly notice that the sound got quiet, but miss these
other aspects to the experience.
Of course a very interesting question is "Why does vinyl sound like
this to me?" The difficulty in answering this is that we have
difficulty describing the brain reactions that correspond to musical
percepts. And we have no ability to measure these reactions.
The objectivist has a very simple "out" that lets him skip over these
difficult questions and make an unjustified claim to "understanding"
what is going on. Simply: "Vinyl has euphonic distortions." The
objectivist hears some listeners describe the experience of vinyl--in
my case, specific aspects of musical listening that correspond more
closely to live listening-- but he collapses that all into the idea
that "vinyl sounds good." Then, not understanding how or why it sounds
good, he says the distortion must sound good. Of course, you can say
that about anything you don't understand--if I claim that I like
product X, and the objectivist doesn't understand why, he can always
claim that I must like X becuase of its shortcomings.
Helen
Gary Eickmeier
> Hi,
>
> I've been lurking here recently. There was a post by a self-described
> "newbie" on CD vs. vinyl, which actually leads to a very important
> point. I repeat the post here:
>
> -------------
> My simple question is that the analog vs digital signal comparison does
> make sense to me and analog technically should have much better dynamic
> range, then why is it when I listen to a turntable, it sounds the
> opposite? Especially the highs always seem cut off where as I throw in
> any
> CD and the extreme high/low range sound much fuller. It's funny because
> I
> know the whole argument is that vinyl is supposed to sound fuller. Is
> it
> because I have to listen to vinyl on some $10k turntable? I've only
> listened on some high-end Technics and Stanton tables.
>
> Also the fact that there's pops and clicks on vinyl from dust is
> extremely
> annoying to me even when you clean it ever 2 seconds.
> ------------
>
> The question is basically, why would someone want to listen to vinyl,
> with its obvious flaws?
I think the answer is no deeper than the fact that vinyl masks the flaws
in the rest of your system, whereas digital stresses your system to the
max. With a certain amount of noise overlaying the signal, plus a
tendency to wipe out the highest frequencies after a few plays, the
sound of the violins becomes more a matter of your sonic imagination
than what is on the disc. With the mastering requirement to ease up on
the amount and phase of the bass frequencies, your woofers are not
strained and the other frequencies get more power available. With such
low stereo separation, imaging subtleties are not a problem with vinyl.
But throw in an extremely clean signal of much greater dynamic range and
frequencies that your system never even knew about, and your troubles
are only beginning.
A good visual analogy would be High Definition television. If you show
it on a little 25 inch set, you say "I don't get it." But when you
project it to 15 feet wide with a good LCOS projector and surround sound
and subwoofers, you "get it."
Gary Eickmeier
Stewart Pinkerton
><Thepork...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:d9uhq...@news2.newsguy.com...
>> It made no sense that such a crude method of playback would be so much
>> more realistic.
>
>Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
>which is pure. The analogy the approximation of an integral (area under a
>curve) by using intervals, vs. actual calculus, which simply gets it right
>from the start. I say "technically" because it is, or will be, possible to
>get the approximation so good that you can't tell the difference.
This is a common, but completely wrong, argument. There is nothing
'pure' about vinyl, as it is a very *poor* analogue of the master tape
signal, whereas CD provides a very *good* analogue of that signal.
That the *intervening* stages in a CD-based system use digital
technology, does not affect the relative purity of the *analogue*
signals which come out of the DAC and the cartridge.
BTW, your analogy is also wrong, although a common misconception, as
digital is *not* the equivalent of an 'area under the curve by
histogram' approximation. The reconstruction filter ensures that the
output is a smooth curve, following the original bandwidth-limited
input signal *exactly*, not approximately.
Stewart Pinkerton
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
<snip much speculation presented as fact>
>The objectivist has a very simple "out" that lets him skip over these
>difficult questions and make an unjustified claim to "understanding"
>what is going on. Simply: "Vinyl has euphonic distortions."
Correct, it does, and there is many decades of research material
available which will tell you exactly what these euphonic distortions
are.
> The
>objectivist hears some listeners describe the experience of vinyl--in
>my case, specific aspects of musical listening that correspond more
>closely to live listening-- but he collapses that all into the idea
>that "vinyl sounds good." Then, not understanding how or why it sounds
>good, he says the distortion must sound good.
Utter rubbish. The reality is that these various eupohonic distortions
can be separately added to an otherwise clean signal, and listeners
will report a preference for the distorted sound in each case. There
is no lack of understanding here.
>Of course, you can say
>that about anything you don't understand--if I claim that I like
>product X, and the objectivist doesn't understand why, he can always
>claim that I must like X becuase of its shortcomings.
OTOH, if the 'objectivist' *does* in fact clearly understand why you
might prefer vinyl, it's intereresting that *you* refuse to accept
these well-known reasons, instead claiming that some mysterious
'higher perception' is at work.
The basic test is to listen to a CD-R transcribed from vinyl on a
high-quality rig. You'll find that this retains all the 'magic' of
vinyl sound, thereby pretty much proving that what you prefer is
indeed the *added* artifacts of vinyl, not anything which is
mysteriously 'lost' by CD.
chung
With all due respect, you simply do not understand digital audio. Or
vinyl, for that matter. Your attempt to justify a preference simply
exposes a severe lack of knowledge of the technical aspects of audio. It
does not help the vinylists' position at all, and in fact hurt it.
Please read up on the fundamentals of digital audio, and in particular
try to get a firmer grasp of the sampling theory. Highly recommended if
you don't want to appear as technically clueless.
Russ Button
> The question is basically, why would someone want to listen to vinyl,
> with its obvious flaws?
Hi Helen!
There are a couple of reasons why I continue to listen to vinyl.
The very first reason is that there's a wealth of fine recordings that
are not available on CD. One of my favorite jazz recordings is titled
"Supersax Plays Bird". Originally recorded in the early 1970's, it
was first released on standard vinyl, later released as a half-speed
master from Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, and then there was a
short CD release which has been out of print for many years and
is very hard to find. Over at Amazon.com, there are 3 copies for
sale at $75, $175, and $200. But vinyl copies are pretty readily
available. It's an extraordinary recording if you love good jazz.
I have a number of recordings on both vinyl and CD. Invariably
the vinyl, even with the surface imprefections, clicks and pops,
yadda yadda, has a timbre which just sounds more natural. My
wife is a professional violinist and very much *NOT* an audiophile.
She's something of a Luddite actually and cares not a bit for our
concerns regarding audio engineering. She just listens to music,
and she hears these differences quite readily.
I have no way to know if these differences are artifacts of the
medium or because the different recordings were mastered differently,
and if so, how they were mastered differently.
As an exercise, I recently digitized "Supersax Plays Bird" from
my MFSL recording. I have a Xitel Inport, which is a cute little
A to D converter, which feeds into a PC USB port. I can then
burn a CD from it. When comparing the CD to the original
vinyl, there does appear to be some added edginess. Is that
an artifact of the Xitel Inport, or is it inherent to digitial?
I don't know.
My own vinyl rig is a Linn LP12 with a Rega RB300 arm and
Rega Elys cartridge, which is most definitely not a $10,000
combination. Were I to put it up for sale at Audiogon, it would
probably go for between $700 to $1000. It's a good combination,
but certainly not the absolute top drawer of the audio hi-end.
Russ
Per Stromgren
>Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
>which is pure.
Stewart has described why this argument is wrong in the first place.
I would like to add that the absolute majority of LP:s are digital
whatever recording techniques was used in the studio! There sits a
digital delay line in nearly all mastering equipment on the planet,
and this delay line is implemented by a digital design... The delay
line is used to autmatically give way for loud passages on the master.
When the LP-sleeve says "Absolute Pure Analogue", I would guess most
of them are right, but only at the input of the mastering equipment.
So, folks, vinyl lovers listen to digital all the time and likes it.
Per.
Thepork...@aol.com
> On 30 Jun 2005 03:16:37 GMT, "jeffc" <jeff...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> >Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
> >which is pure.
>
> Stewart has described why this argument is wrong in the first place.
>
> I would like to add that the absolute majority of LP:s are digital
> whatever recording techniques was used in the studio!
I doubt the absolute majority are digital.
There sits a
> digital delay line in nearly all mastering equipment on the planet,
That would be interesting to investigate. It shouldn't be that hard
since thee are only a few places that still cut laquers.
> and this delay line is implemented by a digital design... The delay
> line is used to autmatically give way for loud passages on the master.
> When the LP-sleeve says "Absolute Pure Analogue", I would guess most
> of them are right, but only at the input of the mastering equipment.
I think a great deal of the world's LPs were made without such a device
in the chain.
>
> So, folks, vinyl lovers listen to digital all the time and likes it.
But digital isn't the issue it is CDs v. LPs. Indeed I have some LPs
made from digital recodings that I quite like. I like some, in fact
many, better than the CD version. Go figure.
Codifus
> <edited>
> As an exercise, I recently digitized "Supersax Plays Bird" from
> my MFSL recording. I have a Xitel Inport, which is a cute little
> A to D converter, which feeds into a PC USB port. I can then
> burn a CD from it. When comparing the CD to the original
> vinyl, there does appear to be some added edginess. Is that
> an artifact of the Xitel Inport, or is it inherent to digitial?
> I don't know.
>
> My own vinyl rig is a Linn LP12 with a Rega RB300 arm and
> Rega Elys cartridge, which is most definitely not a $10,000
> combination. Were I to put it up for sale at Audiogon, it would
> probably go for between $700 to $1000. It's a good combination,
> but certainly not the absolute top drawer of the audio hi-end.
>
> Russ
Here's the flaw: you're comparing your very nice analog setup to a just
barely adequete PC setup. I just looked up the Xitel and found that it's
claim to faim seems to be the elimination of groung loop hums. The key
to making very good Audio CDs or any digital audio is;
1. The quality of your soundcard
2. If you make MP3s, the quality of your MP3 encoder.
You have to pick and choose carefully just as you did when you purchsed
that Linn deck. Good soundcard manufacturers that come to mind are Echo
audio, Audiophile, and Lynx. If you want to make a good quality MP3, so
far I have found that the LAME mp3 encoder is an excellent choice.
CD
Helen Schmidt
> Utter rubbish. The reality is that these various eupohonic distortions
> can be separately added to an otherwise clean signal, and listeners
> will report a preference for the distorted sound in each case. There
> is no lack of understanding here.
>
In your wording above, "the listeners report a preference," you are
showing your basic model. I find that objectivists miss the fact that
there are actually several models that must be understood separately
as well as together.
At the simplest level, audio is about making something that sounds
good, just as food is about making something that tastes good.
However, there's something very different about audio, compared to
food. Audio is about reproducing musical percepts. There's an
"original" event, and we are trying to recreate that event. In an
appropriately broad focus, we will see that the original event is the
stimulation of musical percepts in the listener's mind. The goal of
audio then is the re-stimulation of those percepts.
An experiment which sets out to discover "what listeners prefer" is
simply ignoring this higher level. Experiments which are founded on
improper assumptions will not help us understand anything better.
Helen
Helen Schmidt
>
> As an exercise, I recently digitized "Supersax Plays Bird" from
> my MFSL recording. I have a Xitel Inport, which is a cute little
> A to D converter, which feeds into a PC USB port. I can then
> burn a CD from it. When comparing the CD to the original
> vinyl, there does appear to be some added edginess. Is that
> an artifact of the Xitel Inport, or is it inherent to digitial?
> I don't know.
>
When the overwhelming pattern is that CD's have faults such as
edginess (commercially produced CD's) and vinyl is free from these
faults, the obvious conclusion is that the problem is inherent to
digital.
Of course, since this can't be understood using our current set of
measurements (of audio systems and brains), the objectivist who craves
understanding must fall back on other explanations. The tricky thing
is that many of these alternative explanations are valid in some
situations. The explanations include:
- vinyl has euphonic distortions
- CD reveals the limitations of the system
Of course, these can realistically describe some situations.
There are distortions which, applied to music, make it
sound "better." But if I'm not talking about "better," but about
"truth-to-life", the objectivist answers in the same way.
There are systems with limitations which higher quality source can
reveal. But if those who favor analog do so consistently even in
SOTA systems, the objectivist answers in the same way.
As far as the explanation that "distortion sounds good" -- better
turntables are in fact better mechanically--that is they produce
*less* distortion. And those who favor analog find more truth-to-life
in such systems.
Helen
Jim
news:d9vob...@news2.newsguy.com:
I think, Helen, that you hear what you want to hear. You hear what fits
the self image you've chosen. And this week, for whatever reason, you've
chosen to be a vinyl-o-phile. Possibly you believe that it marks you as a
more discerning or sophisticated listener. On the other hand, it could
mark you simply as someone who delights in stirring up this hornets nest of
a newsgroup.
-- js
Russ Button
> Russ Button wrote:
>
>> <edited>
>> As an exercise, I recently digitized "Supersax Plays Bird" from
>> my MFSL recording. I have a Xitel Inport, which is a cute little
>> A to D converter, which feeds into a PC USB port.
> Here's the flaw: you're comparing your very nice analog setup to a just
> barely adequete PC setup. I just looked up the Xitel and found that it's
> claim to faim seems to be the elimination of groung loop hums.
>
> 1. The quality of your soundcard
The Xitel Inport is not a soundcard. It is an outboard device that takes
a line level feed and puts out a digital stream that you pick up from
a USB port. It comes with controlling capture software you run on
the PC. One of the problems with any soundcard is that the interior
of a PC is full of RFI. Being that the Inport is an outboarded device,
that eliminates that concern.
I don't know how good it is for A to D conversion, or what chipset
it uses, etc. But it seemed like a useful tool at a reasonable price,
which is why I stated that I had no idea exactly what the source
was for the artifacts I was hearing. Even so, it does a pretty good
job and I do find the recordings made with it to be acceptable.
> 2. If you make MP3s, the quality of your MP3 encoder.
I'm not an MP3 kind of guy for the most part. I've never been
into portable stereo, even going back to the original walkman
days. I like good sound in my car and when I have a car player
that will do MP3 format, I'll probably get into it then.
Russ
nab...@hotmail.com
> Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
>
> > Utter rubbish. The reality is that these various eupohonic distortions
> > can be separately added to an otherwise clean signal, and listeners
> > will report a preference for the distorted sound in each case. There
> > is no lack of understanding here.
> >
>
> In your wording above, "the listeners report a preference," you are
> showing your basic model.
Well, no, he's just reporting the results of a particular bit of
research.
> I find that objectivists miss the fact that
> there are actually several models that must be understood separately
> as well as together.
You seem to know very little about what objectivists really think.
Might I suggest that you take a little more time to read carefully,
before you start spraying over-generalizations around?
> At the simplest level, audio is about making something that sounds
> good, just as food is about making something that tastes good.
Well, that can be one goal. To call it "the simplest level" is to
manufacture a very artificial (and, I suspect, a somewhat elitist)
heirarchy.
> However, there's something very different about audio, compared to
> food. Audio is about reproducing musical percepts. There's an
> "original" event, and we are trying to recreate that event. In an
> appropriately broad focus, we will see that the original event is the
> stimulation of musical percepts in the listener's mind. The goal of
> audio then is the re-stimulation of those percepts.
And that is another goal. One goal is not a priori better than the
other.
> An experiment which sets out to discover "what listeners prefer" is
> simply ignoring this higher level. Experiments which are founded on
> improper assumptions will not help us understand anything better.
What improper assumption? Why is it improper to ask what listeners
prefer? If you're in the business of pleasing your customers it's a
damn proper assumption.
Now, you might argue that, in *addition* to research on listener
preferences, we might like to see some research on the effectiveness of
audio systems at what you call "re-stimulation of...percepts." I'm not
sure how much work has actually been done on that. It would not be easy
work to do, at least if you want to get beyond simply asking listeners,
"Which of these sounds more realistic?"
But a first question you should ponder is, Is there much of a
difference between the two questions? By and large, people who argue
that vinyl sounds more realistic are also the ones who report that they
prefer it. If that is generally the case, the research into preferences
may not be missing so much after all.
bob
Ed Seedhouse
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>When the overwhelming pattern is that CD's have faults such as
>edginess (commercially produced CD's) and vinyl is free from these
>faults, the obvious conclusion is that the problem is inherent to
>digital.
This looks to me to be a case of very bad logic. If even a minority of
CD's do not display this "edginess" then it must be true that the
edginess is *not* inherent in the medium. Only if 100% of CD's
exhibited "edginess" would there be any justification for suspecting
that the "edginess" is inherent.
ONE single CD without "edginess", on the other hand, is actually proof
by counterexample that the "edginess" is not inherent.
Ed Seedhouse,
Victoria, B.C.
nab...@hotmail.com
>
> When the overwhelming pattern is that CD's have faults such as
> edginess (commercially produced CD's) and vinyl is free from these
> faults, the obvious conclusion is that the problem is inherent to
> digital.
No, the uninformed conclusion would be that the problem is inherent to
digital. To conclude that the problem is inherent to digital, you'd
have to go through a few more steps. First of all, you'd want to
confirm, through something more robust than anecdotal impression, that
there is indeed such a pattern of perception--for example, we don't
even know whether those who complain of "edginess" are even referring
to the same thing. And second, you'd want to do a comparison in which
the only variable is the medium. Comparing commercial releases does not
cut it.
> Of course, since this can't be understood using our current set of
> measurements (of audio systems and brains),
Why not? What is not to understand? It's actually quite simple to test
the assertion that digital is inherently "edgy." Make a good CD-R of a
vinyl record, compare the two blind, and ask listeners which sounds
more edgy to them. If digital really is "edgy," you'll know.
> the objectivist who craves
> understanding must fall back on other explanations.
I suspect that most objectivists really don't care why people think the
things they do about vinyl. Once again, you are over-generalizing--and
insulting at the same time. Very nice.
> The tricky thing
> is that many of these alternative explanations are valid in some
> situations. The explanations include:
>
> - vinyl has euphonic distortions
>
> - CD reveals the limitations of the system
This is debatable. It's also an assertion I've rarely if ever heard
from an objectivist.
> Of course, these can realistically describe some situations.
>
> There are distortions which, applied to music, make it
> sound "better." But if I'm not talking about "better," but about
> "truth-to-life", the objectivist answers in the same way.
Well, if there are known physical differences between the two, and
there are consistent perceived differences between the two (and it
doesn't matter which perceived differences we're talking about), it's
only reasonable to believe that the perceived differences are a
reaction to the physical differences.
> There are systems with limitations which higher quality source can
> reveal. But if those who favor analog do so consistently even in
> SOTA systems, the objectivist answers in the same way.
Why not? Some of those physical differences remain.
> As far as the explanation that "distortion sounds good" -- better
> turntables are in fact better mechanically--that is they produce
> *less* distortion. And those who favor analog find more truth-to-life
> in such systems.
Better turntables can reduce *some* forms of distortion, but not
others. So the explanation remains sound.
At bottom, there are only two* possible explanations for why some
listeners esteem vinyl over CD:
1) Because of some combination of the known physical differences
between the two media; or
2) Because of some unknown physical difference between the two media.
Tests can confirm #1, at least in part. And while we cannot ever
completely rule out the possibility that there is "something else,"
neither do we need to spend much time considering it until somebody
comes up with at least a reasonable hypothesis about what that
something might be.
So rather than just putting down objectivists whom you obviously
believe to be your intellectual inferiors, why don't you get to work?
bob
Russ Button
> Russ Button wrote:
>
>
>>As an exercise, I recently digitized "Supersax Plays Bird" from
>>my MFSL recording.
>
> edginess (commercially produced CD's) and vinyl is free from these
> faults, the obvious conclusion is that the problem is inherent to
> digital.
Remember that in my example, the vinyl is my "original"
source. The CD I made is a copy of that source and was
then compared to it. If the CD record/playback chain was
truly perfect, then it should have sounded identical when
compared to the vinyl source from which it was made.
> - vinyl has euphonic distortions
Irrelevant in this case because those "euphonic distortions"
would have been captured in the digital signal as they
were part of the source signal.
Russ
jeffc
news:da11g...@news2.newsguy.com...
>>
>>Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
>>which is pure. The analogy the approximation of an integral (area under a
>>curve) by using intervals, vs. actual calculus, which simply gets it right
>>from the start. I say "technically" because it is, or will be, possible
>>to
>>get the approximation so good that you can't tell the difference.
>
> This is a common, but completely wrong, argument. There is nothing
> 'pure' about vinyl, as it is a very *poor* analogue of the master tape
> signal, whereas CD provides a very *good* analogue of that signal.
> That the *intervening* stages in a CD-based system use digital
> technology, does not affect the relative purity of the *analogue*
> signals which come out of the DAC and the cartridge.
That is a common red herring. The analog signal that comesout of the DAC is
a moot point because it was already digital. Digital is, by definition, an
approximation. Period.
Dennis Moore
fault of digital.
Try some recordings with your computer. If you can manage it, feed the
pre-amp out to your sound card with some interconnects and adapters.
Record some LP's and then burn a CD-R or CD-RW. See what you
think? Might be very surprised.
Dennis
Helen Schmidt
>
> Now, you might argue that, in *addition* to research on listener
> preferences, we might like to see some research on the effectiveness of
> audio systems at what you call "re-stimulation of...percepts." I'm not
> sure how much work has actually been done on that. It would not be easy
> work to do, at least if you want to get beyond simply asking listeners,
> "Which of these sounds more realistic?"
>
Right, and without that research, any correlation of the technical
parameters of audio to a certain musical experience is premature. I
suggest that objectivists are very premature in claiming that a
preference for analog can be "understood" as a preference for certain
kinds of distortions.
> But a first question you should ponder is, Is there much of a
> difference between the two questions? By and large, people who argue
> that vinyl sounds more realistic are also the ones who report that they
> prefer it. If that is generally the case, the research into preferences
> may not be missing so much after all.
>
You are confusing the words people choose for convenience with the
underlying concept. Preference is not simply preference. Some people
prefer analog because it sounds more pleasant. Some people prefer it
because local patterns (e.g. timbre), sound truer-to-life. The least
recognized possibility is that some people prefer it because diffuse
patterns (e.g., musical form, and dynamic content) are
truer-to-life. Asking someone what they "prefer" doesn't begin to sort
through these possiblities.
On the other hand, I find vinyl truer-to-life, but I will sometimes
say that I "prefer" vinyl because it is convenient, and still true.
Helen
jeffc
news:da15p...@news4.newsguy.com...
>>
>> Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
>> which is pure. The analogy the approximation of an integral (area under
>> a curve) by using intervals, vs. actual calculus, which simply gets it
>> right from the start. I say "technically" because it is, or will be,
>> possible to get the approximation so good that you can't tell the
>> difference. Unless the iPod crowd makes it financially unfeasible to do
>> so in the market.
>
> With all due respect, you simply do not understand digital audio. Or
> vinyl, for that matter. Your attempt to justify a preference simply
> exposes a severe lack of knowledge of the technical aspects of audio.
I prefer digital. Try again.
Jenn
Jim <jdstr...@comcast.net> wrote:
Or gee, it could just be that she's an honest person who prefers the
sound of music on vinyl. Geese.
Helen Schmidt
>
> I think, Helen, that you hear what you want to hear. You hear what fits
> the self image you've chosen.
Actually, what you have done here is point out exactly the difficulty
in the "objectivist" position, which is that any "subjective"
observation which seems to contradict the "objective measurements" is
put in the category of listener bias, imagination, euphonic distortion,
etc. It's too general an idea; it can explain away anything and
everything.
Helen
jeffc
> 'pure' about vinyl, as it is a very *poor* analogue of the master tape
> signal, whereas CD provides a very *good* analogue of that signal.
I didn't say CD provided a bad analog. The "pure" should be taken in
context. It is pure in the sense that it never left the analog domain.
"Analog" itself also has different meanings, as you are well aware, so there
is not sense in trying to use a different meaning than I used.
> BTW, your analogy is also wrong, although a common misconception, as
> digital is *not* the equivalent of an 'area under the curve by
> histogram' approximation. The reconstruction filter ensures that the
> output is a smooth curve, following the original bandwidth-limited
> input signal *exactly*, not approximately.
"Reconstruction filter", you say? What is that needed for? Did something
change from the original signal? If you can't follow that analogy, then
you're simply not thinking abstractly enough. No one is saying vinyl
doesn't distort the analog signal. And I have not even said the ultimate
analog signal coming from the CD player is worse than the signal coming from
the phono stage. I am saying digital technology has a fundamental design
flaw, and that is that the signal is distorted on purpose. It's inherent in
the technology. Whether the end result is more faithful to the original
signal is beside the point.
Gary Rosen
news:da1b4...@news4.newsguy.com...
> But digital isn't the issue it is CDs v. LPs. Indeed I have some LPs
> made from digital recodings that I quite like. I like some, in fact
> many, better than the CD version. Go figure.
I figure you've never done a blind test. Of course, you can't really
do a blind test with CD vs. LP since there is always surface noise
to let you know it's an LP.
- Gary Rosen
Buster Mudd
model that require scrutiny:
Helen Schmidt wrote:
>
> At the simplest level, audio is about making something that sounds
> good, just as food is about making something that tastes good.
>
Bad analogy. That's just plain wrong. It's not just an
oversimplification, but it's an extremely biased take that seems to
come at the concept of what Audio *is* from left field. (I apologize if
if this sounds antagonistic, but I really feel you have missed the
point on a very fundamental level.)
At the simplest level, audio is not about making something that sounds
good; it's not even about making something that sounds bad. Audio is
about capturing and reproducing something that sounds, period. Any
further qualifiers cease to be "at the simplest level".
> Audio is about reproducing musical percepts. There's an
> "original" event, and we are trying to recreate that event.
That's only one possibility. Audio often *is* the original event. Other
times, audio is what happens in between some "original" event & some
subsequent "potential" event. (Digression: if a recording -- either CD
or LP -- is manufactured but never played, does it make a sound?) Many
times we are not trying to recreate some original event, but rather
we're trying to deliberately manipulate it to be some "other" event.
And just as many times we unintentionally do so; it becomes some
"other" event by pure dint of our poor attempts to recreate the
"original" event. These are just some of the possibilities, all except
the last perfectly valid.
> In an
> appropriately broad focus, we will see that the original event is the
> stimulation of musical percepts in the listener's mind. The goal of
> audio then is the re-stimulation of those percepts.
>
Again, that's only one possibility. Many times in audio the goal is not
the re-stimulation of some original percept, but rather the stimulation
of some wholly unique percept, by virtue of audio's intrinsic
"time-shifting" capability. (I.e., the fact that audio reproduction can
occur at the listener's discretion.)
> Experiments which are founded on
> improper assumptions will not help us understand anything better.
Likewise for newsgroup postings! :)
Codifus
soundcard, I guess the more accurate description would be a soundbox.
But like a soundcard, it has an AD converter and it's functions are very
similar to that of a soundcard, hence I bundle it with the term soundcard:)
If someone were to try to sell you a Technics belt driven plastic
turntable, you'd probably laugh at them because you apppreciate the
capability of your Linn deck. It's the same thing with soundcards. Here
are some links that will put you in the right direction;
This is a technical review of the Xitel Inport;
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1231751,00.asp
Here are some soundcards of good reputation;
http://echoaudio.com/Products/PCI/
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=pciinterfaces
http://www.lynxstudio.com/products.html
CD
Steven Sullivan
> Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
> > Utter rubbish. The reality is that these various eupohonic distortions
> > can be separately added to an otherwise clean signal, and listeners
> > will report a preference for the distorted sound in each case. There
> > is no lack of understanding here.
> >
> In your wording above, "the listeners report a preference," you are
> showing your basic model. I find that objectivists miss the fact that
> there are actually several models that must be understood separately
> as well as together.
> At the simplest level, audio is about making something that sounds
> good, just as food is about making something that tastes good.
No, at the simplest level, food is about providing the body with
nutrition.
> However, there's something very different about audio, compared to
> food. Audio is about reproducing musical percepts. There's an
> "original" event, and we are trying to recreate that event. In an
> appropriately broad focus, we will see that the original event is the
> stimulation of musical percepts in the listener's mind. The goal of
> audio then is the re-stimulation of those percepts.
For the vast majority of recorded music, including more classical music
recordings than the listener might realize , the original 'event' never
happened -- what you hear is a collection of 'events' than never occurred
together in real time.
--
-S
"You know what love really is? It's like you've swallowed a great big
secret. A warm wonderful secret that nobody else knows about." - 'Blame it
on Rio'
Norman M. Schwartz
> number of folks who don't have a CD player because they are convinced
> of the subjective sonic superiority of LP and invest a considerable
> amount of money in equipment to play it. They are missing out on a
> lot of quality new music and performances.
Of the concert halls I visit, one sounds "digital" another more analog like
(and therefore "forgiving"). Some folks won't go to one or other of the
halls because they are convinced of its inferiority. They are missing out on
a lot of quality performances. It's no big deal nor sin to be a "bi-audio"
guy or gal; doing both digital and analog. Why all the fuss and waste of
time arguing over on what has become an overblown and silly dispute with a
lot of "techno" and "psycho" babble? You can be listening to the vinyl or
aluminum disc or BOTH instead. A part of our hobby should well involve
comparisons of both formats, but why the overheated and overblown blown
disputes, with insults to boot. Just *listen* to yourselves.
Stewart Pinkerton
>Per Stromgren wrote:
>> On 30 Jun 2005 03:16:37 GMT, "jeffc" <jeff...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> >Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
>> >which is pure.
>>
>> Stewart has described why this argument is wrong in the first place.
>>
>> I would like to add that the absolute majority of LP:s are digital
>> whatever recording techniques was used in the studio!
>
>I doubt the absolute majority are digital.
They are now..............
> There sits a
>> digital delay line in nearly all mastering equipment on the planet,
>
>That would be interesting to investigate. It shouldn't be that hard
>since thee are only a few places that still cut laquers.
Indeed - which should tell you something, all by itself.
>> and this delay line is implemented by a digital design... The delay
>> line is used to autmatically give way for loud passages on the master.
>> When the LP-sleeve says "Absolute Pure Analogue", I would guess most
>> of them are right, but only at the input of the mastering equipment.
>
>I think a great deal of the world's LPs were made without such a device
>in the chain.
IIRC, the old analogue mastering tape consoles had an extra playback
head to provide the required 'read ahead' time delay needed for
Varigroove operation.
>> So, folks, vinyl lovers listen to digital all the time and likes it.
>
>But digital isn't the issue it is CDs v. LPs. Indeed I have some LPs
>made from digital recodings that I quite like. I like some, in fact
>many, better than the CD version. Go figure.
No need for much figgerin' here, as the well-known euphonic artifacts
of vinyl have been described ad nauseam. If you like those, as opposed
to the neutral transparency of digital, then of course you'll prefer
vinyl to CD, regardless of the master tape origins. The only time you
wouldn't is when the LP has been badly mastered.
--
Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering
Stewart Pinkerton
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
>
>> Utter rubbish. The reality is that these various eupohonic distortions
>> can be separately added to an otherwise clean signal, and listeners
>> will report a preference for the distorted sound in each case. There
>> is no lack of understanding here.
>>
>In your wording above, "the listeners report a preference," you are
>showing your basic model.
Indeed so - the reporting of subjective experiences by the listener.
IIRC, that was also *your* model when you were complaining about the
'simplicity' of objective measures.
> I find that objectivists miss the fact that
>there are actually several models that must be understood separately
>as well as together.
I find that, having lost your basic argument, you are now attempting
to muddy the water.
>At the simplest level, audio is about making something that sounds
>good, just as food is about making something that tastes good.
And at higher levels, it's about 'the closest approach to the original
sound'.
>However, there's something very different about audio, compared to
>food. Audio is about reproducing musical percepts. There's an
>"original" event, and we are trying to recreate that event.
Indeed so.
> In an
>appropriately broad focus, we will see that the original event is the
>stimulation of musical percepts in the listener's mind.
Will we indeed? or is this simply *your* opinion on the matter?
> The goal of
>audio then is the re-stimulation of those percepts.
>
>An experiment which sets out to discover "what listeners prefer" is
>simply ignoring this higher level.
No. it's examing the internalised experience of the listener, in its
entirety. IIRC, this was *your* expressed preference, but you failed
to make your case and are now attempting to change tack.
> Experiments which are founded on
>improper assumptions will not help us understand anything better.
And wild arm-waving about 'musical percepts' will advance our
knowledge of audio not one whit.
Stewart Pinkerton
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Russ Button wrote:
>>
>> As an exercise, I recently digitized "Supersax Plays Bird" from
>> my MFSL recording. I have a Xitel Inport, which is a cute little
>> A to D converter, which feeds into a PC USB port. I can then
>> burn a CD from it. When comparing the CD to the original
>> vinyl, there does appear to be some added edginess. Is that
>> an artifact of the Xitel Inport, or is it inherent to digitial?
>> I don't know.
>>
>When the overwhelming pattern is that CD's have faults such as
>edginess (commercially produced CD's) and vinyl is free from these
>faults, the obvious conclusion is that the problem is inherent to
>digital.
That would be *if*, not when, as relatively few current CDs exhibit
this problem. It follows that it's not an *inherent* problem of CD.
>Of course, since this can't be understood using our current set of
>measurements (of audio systems and brains), the objectivist who craves
>understanding must fall back on other explanations.
Utter rubbish. These defects can certainly be understood and measured.
I have never yet heard an audible defect that did not have a readily
measurable cause.
> The tricky thing
>is that many of these alternative explanations are valid in some
>situations. The explanations include:
>
>- vinyl has euphonic distortions
>
>- CD reveals the limitations of the system
>
>Of course, these can realistically describe some situations.
>
>There are distortions which, applied to music, make it
>sound "better." But if I'm not talking about "better," but about
>"truth-to-life", the objectivist answers in the same way.
That's because the same mechanisms apply - and *opinions* regarding
'truth to life' vary greatly.
>There are systems with limitations which higher quality source can
>reveal. But if those who favor analog do so consistently even in
>SOTA systems, the objectivist answers in the same way.
>
>As far as the explanation that "distortion sounds good" -- better
>turntables are in fact better mechanically--that is they produce
>*less* distortion. And those who favor analog find more truth-to-life
>in such systems.
Do they? Or do they simply look at all that magnificent engineering
and assume that it *must* be 'better'? There's a pattern here, in that
the 'subjectivists' seem to favour sighted listening, which leads to
this kind of expectation bias. Besides, the inherent flaws of vinyl
override playback equipment quality once you get above the level of
say the Rega Planar 3. Even a Forsell or Rockport will exhibit audible
wow if the record groove isn't *exactly* concentric with the hole, and
there's no cure for inner-groove distortion, or for rolled-off and
summed to mono bass.
Greg Lee
...
> Actually, what you have done here is point out exactly the difficulty
> in the "objectivist" position, which is that any "subjective"
> observation which seems to contradict the "objective measurements" is
> put in the category of listener bias, imagination, euphonic distortion,
> etc. It's too general an idea; it can explain away anything and
> everything.
But that's what always happens with observations that contradict
established theories. They're dismissed. Only new and better
theories can win out. What's wanted from the non-"objectivist"
side is some alternative theoretical understanding. If you don't
want to be explained away, explain.
--
Greg Lee <gr...@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>
nab...@hotmail.com
> nab...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> >
> > Now, you might argue that, in *addition* to research on listener
> > preferences, we might like to see some research on the effectiveness of
> > audio systems at what you call "re-stimulation of...percepts." I'm not
> > sure how much work has actually been done on that. It would not be easy
> > work to do, at least if you want to get beyond simply asking listeners,
> > "Which of these sounds more realistic?"
> >
>
> Right, and without that research, any correlation of the technical
> parameters of audio to a certain musical experience is premature. I
> suggest that objectivists are very premature in claiming that a
> preference for analog can be "understood" as a preference for certain
> kinds of distortions.
First of all, while I can't point you to particular research, it's my
understanding that some such work has been done. Perhaps others can
provide details. Second, even absent research, we can formulate
hypotheses, and consider their plausibility. A hypothesis based on
known forms of distortion is more plausible than one that posits some
unknown form of distortion, for example. And it would certainly be more
plausible than one based on a total misunderstanding of the technology.
(And we see a lot of that around here--in this very thread, in fact!)
> > But a first question you should ponder is, Is there much of a
> > difference between the two questions? By and large, people who argue
> > that vinyl sounds more realistic are also the ones who report that they
> > prefer it. If that is generally the case, the research into preferences
> > may not be missing so much after all.
> >
>
> You are confusing the words people choose for convenience with the
> underlying concept. Preference is not simply preference.
Well, yes it is, in the sense that it's nonspecific.
> Some people
> prefer analog because it sounds more pleasant. Some people prefer it
> because local patterns (e.g. timbre), sound truer-to-life. The least
> recognized possibility is that some people prefer it because diffuse
> patterns (e.g., musical form, and dynamic content) are
> truer-to-life.
Hmmm...If you're comparing two pieces of audio equipment, and you hear
differences of musical form, then something is catastrophically wrong
with one of those components!
> Asking someone what they "prefer" doesn't begin to sort
> through these possiblities.
No, but what I'm suggesting is that we may not really need to sort
through these possibilities. See below.
> On the other hand, I find vinyl truer-to-life, but I will sometimes
> say that I "prefer" vinyl because it is convenient, and still true.
I believe that when people say they prefer vinyl, they mean it. And
when they say they find it more "lifelike," they mean that, too. I
seriously doubt that whenever people say they "prefer" vinyl, what they
really mean is *only* that they find it more lifelike. It may be used
as an occasional shorthand, but it is certainly not a universal one.
At the same time, I don't think they arrive at a judgment that vinyl is
more lifelike without taking account of their preferences. I've even
suggested that people may decide first that they prefer the sound, and
then presume that the *reason* they prefer the sound is because it is
more lifelike. If that's the case, then doing research on why some
people find vinyl more life-like would be rather pointless.
bob
Chung
With all due respect you simply fo not understand digital audio. You
really have exposed a severe lack of knowledge of the technical aspects
of audio in that post. The fact that you said analog is "pure", strongly
supggests that you prefer analog.
Better?
Helen Schmidt
Yes, when new evidence comes in, theories that don't fit are discarded.
The problem is that neither measurements nor asking questions is a very
good way of determining someone's mental state; neither of them are
very good evidence. But measurements at present are completely
worthless at determining mental state, so to support a theory of mental
state on the basis of measurements is absurd.
Helen Schmidt
Steven Sullivan
> Helen Schmidt wrote:
> > Russ Button wrote:
> >
> >
> >>As an exercise, I recently digitized "Supersax Plays Bird" from
> >>my MFSL recording.
> >
> > When the overwhelming pattern is that CD's have faults such as
> > edginess (commercially produced CD's) and vinyl is free from these
> > faults, the obvious conclusion is that the problem is inherent to
> > digital.
> Remember that in my example, the vinyl is my "original"
> source. The CD I made is a copy of that source and was
> then compared to it. If the CD record/playback chain was
> truly perfect, then it should have sounded identical when
> compared to the vinyl source from which it was made.
In my personal experience, which accords with the scientific
literature, comparisons of audio that are done 'sighted',
such as yours seems to have been, are highly prone to false positive
impressions of 'difference'. Have you tried to repeat the comparison
with some elementary controls in place? Admittedly these will
be difficult to put in place for a vinyl/CD copy comparison,
since to do it right you'll have to not only level match both
channels, but also time-synch the two sources, and devise some
means of random switching between them. It also assumes that
the LP doesn't pick up new pops and ticks before or during the
test.
Without these precautions any report of difference between an LP
and a competently-made digital copy of same is inherently suspect.
jeffc
news:da477...@news3.newsguy.com...
No, not really. With a good record and record player, the surface noise can
easily be below level of tape hiss of the master from which the 2 sources
were made.
Chung
> Russ Button wrote:
>
>>
>> As an exercise, I recently digitized "Supersax Plays Bird" from
>> my MFSL recording. I have a Xitel Inport, which is a cute little
>> A to D converter, which feeds into a PC USB port. I can then
>> burn a CD from it. When comparing the CD to the original
>> vinyl, there does appear to be some added edginess. Is that
>> an artifact of the Xitel Inport, or is it inherent to digitial?
>> I don't know.
>>
>
> When the overwhelming pattern is that CD's have faults such as
> edginess (commercially produced CD's) and vinyl is free from these
> faults, the obvious conclusion is that the problem is inherent to
> digital.
>
This paragraph speaks volumes about the poster's bias against CD.
1. There are many CD's that do not exhibit edginess at all. Edginess
is most likely a result of equalization by the mastering engineers. In
fact, other than some very poorly mastered CD's from the early '80's, I
have heard very few "edgy" CD's. I guess I should qualify that by saying
that I mostly listen to classical music these days.
2. I have heard many vinyl recordings that exhibit edginess. These
were mostly from the 1970's and '80's.
3. Even if you accept that there are more edgy CD's than vinyl LP's,
the conclusion that the problem is inherent to digital is seriously
wrong. To arrive at that conclusion, you have to show evidence that (a)
there is no vinyl LP that is edgy, (b) all digital recordings show
edginess, and (c) have vinyl and digital records made from the same
master where you prove that the vinyl is not edgy while the digital is.
4. There is not even a consensus about what "edgy" means. Edgy to you
may be clear and transparent to others. Define "edgy" in a way that is
quantifiable, then we can have a more meaningful discussion.
> Of course, since this can't be understood using our current set of
> measurements (of audio systems and brains), the objectivist who craves
> understanding must fall back on other explanations. The tricky thing
> is that many of these alternative explanations are valid in some
> situations. The explanations include:
>
> - vinyl has euphonic distortions
>
> - CD reveals the limitations of the system
>
> Of course, these can realistically describe some situations.
>
I guess it is tricky when you do not have any argument against those
explanations, and you really, really, don't want to believe them :).
I can provide other explanations, too. Maybe you'll find them tricky
also. How about:
(a) There are excellent vinyl recordings of certain performances that
have not been successfully remastered in digital.
(b) Some people like vinyl for nostalgic reasons.
(c) Some people like vinyl for the coolness factor. Vinyl is such a
samll niche that it might make someone feel special to still prefer
vinyl. One of my sons told me that, so it is true.
(d) Some people have no luck in getting good CD's (and/or high-rez digital).
(e) Some people just love going through the ritual of cleaning,
adjusting, tweaking, getting up to change sides, etc.
(f) Some people do not like to be startled by the huge dynamic range
inherent in CD and digital. They feel more comfortable listening to
recordings where there is always a certain hiss, reminding them that
they are listening to a vinyl record.
(g) Vinyl provides limitless opportunities in tweaking. There are many
things in a vinyl system that you can change to effect a noticeable
audio difference. Some people like tweaking. Some people like to always
look for upgrades. Some people want to debate what is SOTA, or what is
hi-end, and the vinyl systems allow them to do that.
But, seriously, why do you care about why people prefer certain things?
If I prefer CD's, are you going to start researching why?
Russ Button
> Well don't confuse CD as the only digital. Or all flaws on CD as the
> fault of digital.
Agreed.
> Try some recordings with your computer. If you can manage it, feed the
> pre-amp out to your sound card with some interconnects and adapters.
> Record some LP's and then burn a CD-R or CD-RW. See what you
> think? Might be very surprised.
This is exactly what I did. The edginess is there, though it is not glaring.
I can think of several possible reasons for it.
1. Operator error. I may not be running the equipment properly or
I might be using less than optimal settings on the capture software.
2. The A to D converter in the Xitel Inport may just be of a lower
quality than A to D converters used in pro grade setups.
3. Digital at 44.1 khz may introduce audible artifacts which manifest
as edginess.
Russ
Steven Sullivan
That only matters if the LP accretes *more* noise
after you've done the transfer.
Steven Sullivan
Better still would be some experimental testing of the alternative
theory. *Anyone* can theorize. ;>
Steven Sullivan
> On 30 Jun 2005 22:09:47 GMT, "Helen Schmidt"
> <music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >When the overwhelming pattern is that CD's have faults such as
> >edginess (commercially produced CD's) and vinyl is free from these
> >faults, the obvious conclusion is that the problem is inherent to
> >digital.
> This looks to me to be a case of very bad logic. If even a minority of
> CD's do not display this "edginess" then it must be true that the
> edginess is *not* inherent in the medium. Only if 100% of CD's
> exhibited "edginess" would there be any justification for suspecting
> that the "edginess" is inherent.
> ONE single CD without "edginess", on the other hand, is actually proof
> by counterexample that the "edginess" is not inherent.
Aside from which, it is NOT the 'overhwhelming pattern' that CDs have
'faults such as edginess'; that is only a *common belief* of
*audiophile culture* -- which is a tiny, tiny segment of the listening
public.
jeffc
news:da4sl...@news3.newsguy.com...
>>
>> I prefer digital. Try again.
>
> With all due respect you simply fo not understand digital audio. You
> really have exposed a severe lack of knowledge of the technical aspects of
> audio in that post. The fact that you said analog is "pure", strongly
> supggests that you prefer analog.
>
> Better?
Nope, not even close. I have a good understanding of digital audio, and the
fact that you took my analogy literally suggests that you really don't
understand much of anything I said. Listen the context in which the comment
was made. You need to hear an analog sound. "Pure" means unaltered in
terms of form. If you convert to digital, you've switched forms. A
recording that is analog all the way through the recording process is "pure"
analog in the sense that it's "only" analog, with no other form as part of
the mix. There is no such thing as pure digital because you can't hear
digital. It's gone through a conversion process (twice) while analog never
has.
This doesn't mean the ultimate analog sound you hear is more faithful to the
original just because it's remained purely analog. In fact, often the
digital recording provides a more faithful reproduction, but of course
that's partly subjective - it depends on your criteria. And you have to
have some criteria (priorities), since no reproduction is ever perfect.
Marc Foster
wrote:
>
> "Reconstruction filter", you say? What is that needed for? Did something
> change from the original signal? If you can't follow that analogy, then
> you're simply not thinking abstractly enough. No one is saying vinyl
> doesn't distort the analog signal. And I have not even said the ultimate
> analog signal coming from the CD player is worse than the signal coming from
> the phono stage. I am saying digital technology has a fundamental design
> flaw, and that is that the signal is distorted on purpose. It's inherent in
> the technology. Whether the end result is more faithful to the original
> signal is beside the point.
As others have pointed out, you simply don't understand how digital
sampling and playback works. If you are asking why a reconstruction
filter is needed, that is absolute proof of your lack of knowledge. Two
required parts of a digital system are a band limiting filter on the
input to the ADC to eliminate frequency components above 1/2 the
sampling frequency and a band limiting filter on the output of the DAC
(called a reconstruction filter). If you properly implement both
filters the output will be exactly the input. There are mathematical
proofs which demonstrate this. Go study "Principles of Digital Audio"
by Pohlman. Until then I would suggest not further exposing you
ignorance by making confident statements about something you don't
understand in a forum where a fair number of people actually do
understand it.
Marc Foster
Stewart Pinkerton
>"Stewart Pinkerton" <pat...@dircon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:da11g...@news2.newsguy.com...
>>
>> This is a common, but completely wrong, argument. There is nothing
>> 'pure' about vinyl, as it is a very *poor* analogue of the master tape
>> signal, whereas CD provides a very *good* analogue of that signal.
>
>I didn't say CD provided a bad analog. The "pure" should be taken in
>context. It is pure in the sense that it never left the analog domain.
Purity however implies unsullied, and vinyl is seriously sullied by
surface noise, by rolled-off and summed to mono bass, by inner groove
distortion, by midrange phase problems, and by severe harmonic
distortion. Vinyl is 'pure'? I think not..........
>"Analog" itself also has different meanings, as you are well aware, so there
>is not sense in trying to use a different meaning than I used.
No, analogue has a single meaning, which you appear not to
undertstand. The electrical signal coming from the microphone(s) is an
analogue of the original soundfield. What happens to that signal
between there and the loudspeakers is another matter. If you mean
vinyl, then say vinyl. BTW, as noted elsewhere, since every modern
vinyl cutting facility includes a digital delay line for Varigroove
purposes, *all* new music recordings are digital by definition,
whether purchased on black or silver discs.
>> BTW, your analogy is also wrong, although a common misconception, as
>> digital is *not* the equivalent of an 'area under the curve by
>> histogram' approximation. The reconstruction filter ensures that the
>> output is a smooth curve, following the original bandwidth-limited
>> input signal *exactly*, not approximately.
>
>"Reconstruction filter", you say? What is that needed for?
It's the matching item for the anti-aliasing filter at the input of
the ADC, and it reconstructs the correct analogue waveform from the
raw DAC output histogram which has unwanted RF components. It's needed
because it's part of the complete AD/DA system. If you don't know
that, then why are you commenting on the technical aspects of the
system?
> Did something
>change from the original signal?
Not necessarily, it's a simple bandwidth limiting component, ensuring
that only signals of less than half the sampling frequency appear in
the output signal. Other bandwidth limiting components include studio
microphones and analogue tape recorders..........
> If you can't follow that analogy, then
>you're simply not thinking abstractly enough.
What analogy? Are you thinking at all?
> No one is saying vinyl
>doesn't distort the analog signal. And I have not even said the ultimate
>analog signal coming from the CD player is worse than the signal coming from
>the phono stage. I am saying digital technology has a fundamental design
>flaw, and that is that the signal is distorted on purpose. It's inherent in
>the technology. Whether the end result is more faithful to the original
>signal is beside the point.
You completely misunderstand digital technology. Within the *sole*
limitation that the input signal bandwidth must be less than half the
sampling frequency, digital audio is theoretically *perfect*. There
simply is *no* 'fundamental flaw' such as you ignorantly suggest. The
only real-world distortions are those added by the *analogue* parts of
the system. That's why typical CD players exhibit less than 0.01%
distortion at full output across the entire audio band, and have no
artifacts whatever above the noise floor.
Russ Button
> Russ Button <ru...@button.com> wrote:
>
>>Remember that in my example, the vinyl is my "original"
>>source. The CD I made is a copy of that source and was
>>then compared to it. If the CD record/playback chain was
>>truly perfect, then it should have sounded identical when
>>compared to the vinyl source from which it was made.
>
>
> In my personal experience, which accords with the scientific
> literature, comparisons of audio that are done 'sighted',
> such as yours seems to have been, are highly prone to false positive
> impressions of 'difference'. Have you tried to repeat the comparison
> with some elementary controls in place?
For the various reasons you cited, I am unable to make the
kind of comparison you suggest.
> Without these precautions any report of difference between an LP
> and a competently-made digital copy of same is inherently suspect.
Your concerns are noted, but given what I have to work with, it's
the best I can do.
I don't like to do quick A-B comparisons. Instead I like to listen to
one for a while, and then later switch to the other. I find that I
seem to have different reactions to things over time in a fashion
I can only describe as emotional.
As I said earlier, the edginess I experienced seemed rather
subtle, but there nonetheless.
Russ
Stewart Pinkerton
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>nab...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>> Now, you might argue that, in *addition* to research on listener
>> preferences, we might like to see some research on the effectiveness of
>> audio systems at what you call "re-stimulation of...percepts." I'm not
>> sure how much work has actually been done on that. It would not be easy
>> work to do, at least if you want to get beyond simply asking listeners,
>> "Which of these sounds more realistic?"
>>
>Right, and without that research, any correlation of the technical
>parameters of audio to a certain musical experience is premature. I
>suggest that objectivists are very premature in claiming that a
>preference for analog can be "understood" as a preference for certain
>kinds of distortions.
The whole thing is much simpler than you pretend. Not everyone shares
*your* preference for vinyl, or your *opinion* that vinyl is more
'lifelike', hence there is no need to search for mysterious mechanisms
in support of your personal opinion. First comes the verifiable
observation of an effect, *then* comes the search for a cause.
>> But a first question you should ponder is, Is there much of a
>> difference between the two questions? By and large, people who argue
>> that vinyl sounds more realistic are also the ones who report that they
>> prefer it. If that is generally the case, the research into preferences
>> may not be missing so much after all.
>>
>You are confusing the words people choose for convenience with the
>underlying concept. Preference is not simply preference. Some people
>prefer analog because it sounds more pleasant. Some people prefer it
>because local patterns (e.g. timbre), sound truer-to-life. The least
>recognized possibility is that some people prefer it because diffuse
>patterns (e.g., musical form, and dynamic content) are
>truer-to-life. Asking someone what they "prefer" doesn't begin to sort
>through these possiblities.
There you go again, parading your personal *opinion* as a fact. It is
most definitely *not* a fact that vinyl *is* more 'true to life', that
is simply your personal opinion. Hence, there need be no mysterious
mechanism underlying this more 'lifelike' impression which you have
formed. Interesting that this possibility has never occurred to you.
Stewart Pinkerton
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Good job no one here suggested any such thing. Did you not read the
posts about the development of perceptual coders? The word
'perceptual' is something of a clue.............
Stewart Pinkerton
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Jim wrote:
>
>>
>> I think, Helen, that you hear what you want to hear. You hear what fits
>> the self image you've chosen.
>
>Actually, what you have done here is point out exactly the difficulty
>in the "objectivist" position, which is that any "subjective"
>observation which seems to contradict the "objective measurements" is
>put in the category of listener bias, imagination, euphonic distortion,
>etc. It's too general an idea; it can explain away anything and
>everything.
Actually, what you've done here is point out exactly the difficulty of
the 'subjectivist' position, which is that any 'objective' observation
which contradicts the 'subjective impression' is put in the category
of oversimplification, lack of understanding of higher aesthetics,
intellectual inferiority (that seems to be your favourite), and lots
of other vague handwaving with no evidential backup.
It's too general an argument, and conveniently ignores the *fact* that
we really *do* understand an awful lot about audio, about human
perception, and about *why* many people prefer vinyl. The rest of the
self-justification regarding 'realism' is easily explained by any
psychologist. But of course, you don't *want* an explanation, you just
want to ignore reality and play with your vinyl toys.
Stewart Pinkerton
>"Stewart Pinkerton" <pat...@dircon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:da11g...@news2.newsguy.com...
>>>
>>>Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
>>>which is pure. The analogy the approximation of an integral (area under a
>>>curve) by using intervals, vs. actual calculus, which simply gets it right
>>>from the start. I say "technically" because it is, or will be, possible
>>>to
>>>get the approximation so good that you can't tell the difference.
>>
>> This is a common, but completely wrong, argument. There is nothing
>> 'pure' about vinyl, as it is a very *poor* analogue of the master tape
>> signal, whereas CD provides a very *good* analogue of that signal.
>> That the *intervening* stages in a CD-based system use digital
>> technology, does not affect the relative purity of the *analogue*
>> signals which come out of the DAC and the cartridge.
>
>That is a common red herring. The analog signal that comesout of the DAC is
>a moot point because it was already digital. Digital is, by definition, an
>approximation. Period.
Aside from the sole limitation that the bandwidth of the input signal
must be less than half the sampling frequency, digital is most
certainly *not* an approximation. Period. Anyone who thinks otherwise
simply doesn't understand how digital audio works.
Stewart Pinkerton
Utter rubbish. I have many 'audiophile' LPs, and master tape noise is
*always* lower than record surface noise. Indeed, the most basic
knowledge of the relevant dynamic ranges of vinyl and 15 ips analogue
tape would indicate how risible is your claim. OTOH, I have many rock
and pop records where tape noise is certainly audible.... :-(
Helen Schmidt
> Helen Schmidt wrote:
> >
>
> > Some people
> > prefer analog because it sounds more pleasant. Some people prefer it
> > because local patterns (e.g. timbre), sound truer-to-life. The least
> > recognized possibility is that some people prefer it because diffuse
> > patterns (e.g., musical form, and dynamic content) are
> > truer-to-life.
>
> Hmmm...If you're comparing two pieces of audio equipment, and you hear
> differences of musical form, then something is catastrophically wrong
> with one of those components!
You are overlooking something here, something that the objectivists
seem usually to overlook. Certainly if musical form stimulated only
sonic percepts---loud/sound, fast/slow---then a piece of equipment
would have to be catastrophically broken to change that. But you
overlook the possibility that musical form stimulates what I call
holistic percepts: emotions, body sensation, and the resonance of
spiritual mythology. And, relative to my listening, vinyl conveys these
aspects of form better.
It's very likely you don't care much about those percepts. There's
nothing wrong with that; it simply makes your opinion about
reproduction of sound merely your opinion, with no special weight above
the opinions of others.
>
> At the same time, I don't think they arrive at a judgment that vinyl is
> more lifelike without taking account of their preferences. I've even
> suggested that people may decide first that they prefer the sound, and
> then presume that the *reason* they prefer the sound is because it is
> more lifelike. If that's the case, then doing research on why some
> people find vinyl more life-like would be rather pointless.
The funny thing is that it looks to me like many people decide first
that they prefer the sound of CD, and then presume the *reason* is the
measurements.
Helen Schmidt
Norman M. Schwartz
news:da4sv...@news3.newsguy.com...
say the stylus has been worn to some degree as a result of having recorded
the CD.
nab...@hotmail.com
> nab...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > Helen Schmidt wrote:
> > >
>
> >
> > > Some people
> > > prefer analog because it sounds more pleasant. Some people prefer it
> > > because local patterns (e.g. timbre), sound truer-to-life. The least
> > > recognized possibility is that some people prefer it because diffuse
> > > patterns (e.g., musical form, and dynamic content) are
> > > truer-to-life.
> >
> > Hmmm...If you're comparing two pieces of audio equipment, and you hear
> > differences of musical form, then something is catastrophically wrong
> > with one of those components!
>
> You are overlooking something here, something that the objectivists
> seem usually to overlook.
You are overlooking what I wrote, and substituting your own
intellectual prejudices.
> Certainly if musical form stimulated only
> sonic percepts---loud/sound, fast/slow---then a piece of equipment
> would have to be catastrophically broken to change that. But you
> overlook the possibility that musical form stimulates what I call
> holistic percepts: emotions, body sensation, and the resonance of
> spiritual mythology.
I'm not overlooking this. You're the one who implied that components
could differ in their presentation of "musical form," a concept you
still do not seem to have a firm grasp of. (It's not about speed and
volume.)
> And, relative to my listening, vinyl conveys these
> aspects of form better.
They are not aspects of form. They are reactions to form. But since, as
you now admit, functioning components cannot differ in their
presentation of the musical form, it is contradictory to then claim
that vinyl better conveys anything related to form. For a philosopher,
you're rather careless with your concepts.
> It's very likely you don't care much about those percepts. There's
> nothing wrong with that; it simply makes your opinion about
> reproduction of sound merely your opinion, with no special weight above
> the opinions of others.
My opinions are indeed no better than anyone else's. But they are
better informed than yours.
> > At the same time, I don't think they arrive at a judgment that vinyl is
> > more lifelike without taking account of their preferences. I've even
> > suggested that people may decide first that they prefer the sound, and
> > then presume that the *reason* they prefer the sound is because it is
> > more lifelike. If that's the case, then doing research on why some
> > people find vinyl more life-like would be rather pointless.
>
> The funny thing is that it looks to me like many people decide first
> that they prefer the sound of CD, and then presume the *reason* is the
> measurements.
Hardly, as we don't listen to measurements.
bob
Chung
In the analog domain, signals subject to noise, non-linear distortions,
and frequency response alterations. There is no such thing as pure.
That's why modern communications is *all* digital, because it is a much
purer method of information transfer and retrieval.
Like I said early, read up on the principles of digital audio, and try
to get a grasp of the sampling theorem.
I have not taken your analogy literally or figuratively, because it is
such a poor analogy. Here is what you said: "Technically digital is
crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog and analog is pure". It
is not an analogy at all that you are stating. You are stating a
misunderstanding. Then you said "I say 'technically' because it is, or
will be, possible to get the approximation so good that you can't tell
the difference." This shows that you believe digital can only get as
good as analog as in vinyl. This agains shows a lack of understanding,
of both analog and digital.
Stewart Pinkerton
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>nab...@hotmail.com wrote:
>> Helen Schmidt wrote:
>> >
>> > Some people
>> > prefer analog because it sounds more pleasant. Some people prefer it
>> > because local patterns (e.g. timbre), sound truer-to-life. The least
>> > recognized possibility is that some people prefer it because diffuse
>> > patterns (e.g., musical form, and dynamic content) are
>> > truer-to-life.
>>
>> Hmmm...If you're comparing two pieces of audio equipment, and you hear
>> differences of musical form, then something is catastrophically wrong
>> with one of those components!
>
>You are overlooking something here, something that the objectivists
>seem usually to overlook. Certainly if musical form stimulated only
>sonic percepts---loud/sound, fast/slow---then a piece of equipment
>would have to be catastrophically broken to change that.
Oh, so now you are inventing non-sonic percepts? Please explain how
these might be audible.........................
> But you
>overlook the possibility that musical form stimulates what I call
>holistic percepts: emotions, body sensation, and the resonance of
>spiritual mythology. And, relative to my listening, vinyl conveys these
>aspects of form better.
OTOH, relative to *my* listening, CD conveys these aspects of form
better than does vinyl. When you have something to offer other than
your own opinion, do feel free to share it.
>It's very likely you don't care much about those percepts. There's
>nothing wrong with that; it simply makes your opinion about
>reproduction of sound merely your opinion, with no special weight above
>the opinions of others.
Did it ever occur to you that the same argument applies to *your*
opinion? Guess not................
>> At the same time, I don't think they arrive at a judgment that vinyl is
>> more lifelike without taking account of their preferences. I've even
>> suggested that people may decide first that they prefer the sound, and
>> then presume that the *reason* they prefer the sound is because it is
>> more lifelike. If that's the case, then doing research on why some
>> people find vinyl more life-like would be rather pointless.
>
>The funny thing is that it looks to me like many people decide first
>that they prefer the sound of CD, and then presume the *reason* is the
>measurements.
The much funnier thing is that it looks to me like some people decide
first that they prefer the sound of vinyl, then they presume the
*reason* is that there is some mysterious 'unknown to science'
mechanism which causes this preference. Strange that they completely
discount all the well-known euphonic distortions which easily explain
their personal preference.
Stewart Pinkerton
>"Chung" <chun...@covad.net> wrote in message
>news:da4sl...@news3.newsguy.com...
>>>
>>> I prefer digital. Try again.
>>
>> With all due respect you simply fo not understand digital audio. You
>> really have exposed a severe lack of knowledge of the technical aspects of
>> audio in that post. The fact that you said analog is "pure", strongly
>> supggests that you prefer analog.
>>
>> Better?
>
>Nope, not even close. I have a good understanding of digital audio,
Hmmmm, the evidence so far suggest otherwise.
> and the
>fact that you took my analogy literally suggests that you really don't
>understand much of anything I said. Listen the context in which the comment
>was made. You need to hear an analog sound. "Pure" means unaltered in
>terms of form.
Quite so, and vinyl *grossly* distorts the form of the master tape.
> If you convert to digital, you've switched forms. A
>recording that is analog all the way through the recording process is "pure"
>analog in the sense that it's "only" analog, with no other form as part of
>the mix. There is no such thing as pure digital because you can't hear
>digital. It's gone through a conversion process (twice) while analog never
>has.
Utter rubbish, and indicative of your total lack of understanding of
digital *and* analogue audio. Your so-called 'pure' analogue undergoes
conversion from sound pressure to mechanical deviation to electrical
signal at the microphone, undergoes conversion from electrical signal
to magnetic domain information when recorded to tape, undergoes
conversion from magnetic domain information to electrical signal when
replayed, undergoes conversion from electrical signal to mechanical
deviation when applied to the head of the cutting lathe, undergoes
more mechanical deviation when transferred from cutting master to
final pressing, undergoes conversion from mechanical deviation to
electrical signal when transduced by the cartridge, undergoes
conversion from electrical signal to mechanical deviation of the
speaker diaphragm, and finally undergoes conversion from mechanical
deviation to sound pressure at your ears. You call this 'pure'? You
simply do not understand what's happening.
>This doesn't mean the ultimate analog sound you hear is more faithful to the
>original just because it's remained purely analog. In fact, often the
>digital recording provides a more faithful reproduction, but of course
>that's partly subjective - it depends on your criteria. And you have to
>have some criteria (priorities), since no reproduction is ever perfect.
Indeed - but digital is *much* closer to perfection than your
so-called 'pure' analogue can ever be.
Steven Sullivan
> Steven Sullivan wrote:
> the best I can do.
> I don't like to do quick A-B comparisons. Instead I like to listen to
> one for a while, and then later switch to the other. I find that I
> seem to have different reactions to things over time in a fashion
> I can only describe as emotional.
> As I said earlier, the edginess I experienced seemed rather
> subtle, but there nonetheless.
The more reasonable conclusion is that it *might* be there, rather
than 'it is there nonetheless'.
Greg Lee
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Greg Lee wrote:
>> Helen Schmidt <music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> ...
>> > Actually, what you have done here is point out exactly the difficulty
>> > in the "objectivist" position, which is that any "subjective"
>> > observation which seems to contradict the "objective measurements" is
>> > put in the category of listener bias, imagination, euphonic distortion,
>> > etc. It's too general an idea; it can explain away anything and
>> > everything.
>>
>> But that's what always happens with observations that contradict
>> established theories. They're dismissed. Only new and better
>> theories can win out. What's wanted from the non-"objectivist"
>> side is some alternative theoretical understanding. If you don't
>> want to be explained away, explain.
>
>Yes, when new evidence comes in, theories that don't fit are discarded.
That's not what I meant. Sorry, I see that my "they" was ambiguous. I
meant that the evidence is dismissed (not the theories). Whether there
is evidence that LPs are higher fidelity is obviously arguable. I'm
just saying that no such evidence will be taken seriously without a
new theory that the evidence supports.
>The problem is that neither measurements nor asking questions is a very
>good way of determining someone's mental state; neither of them are
>very good evidence. But measurements at present are completely
>worthless at determining mental state, so to support a theory of mental
>state on the basis of measurements is absurd.
--
Greg Lee <gr...@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>
Ed Seedhouse
wrote:
And this is not merely opinion, its has been mathematically proven. You
might as well believe that the square root of two is rational as believe
that digital is an "approximation".
Ed Seedhouse,
Victoria, B.C.
Thepork...@aol.com
> On 2 Jul 2005 02:06:04 GMT, "jeffc" <jeff...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >"Gary Rosen" <garym...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> >news:da477...@news3.newsguy.com...
> >> <Thepork...@aol.com> wrote in message
> >> news:da1b4...@news4.newsguy.com...
> >>
> >>
> >>> But digital isn't the issue it is CDs v. LPs. Indeed I have some LPs
> >>> made from digital recodings that I quite like. I like some, in fact
> >>> many, better than the CD version. Go figure.
> >>
> >> I figure you've never done a blind test. Of course, you can't really
> >> do a blind test with CD vs. LP since there is always surface noise
> >> to let you know it's an LP.
> >
> >No, not really. With a good record and record player, the surface noise can
> >easily be below level of tape hiss of the master from which the 2 sources
> >were made.
>
> Utter rubbish.
Utter rubbish to your utter rubbish.
I have many 'audiophile' LPs, and master tape noise is
> *always* lower than record surface noise.
Then you must be using damaged records. Otherwise this is complete
nonsense or you have a unique selection of "audiophile" LPs or, again
your LPs are just wrecked by mistracking or poor cleaning methods.
Indeed, the most basic
> knowledge of the relevant dynamic ranges of vinyl and 15 ips analogue
> tape would indicate how risible is your claim. OTOH, I have many rock
> and pop records where tape noise is certainly audible.... :-(
But you can't hear tape hiss on any of your audiophile LPs? Something
is wrong there.
Scott Wheeler
Thepork...@aol.com
> <Thepork...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:da1b4...@news4.newsguy.com...
>
>
> > But digital isn't the issue it is CDs v. LPs. Indeed I have some LPs
> > made from digital recodings that I quite like. I like some, in fact
> > many, better than the CD version. Go figure.
>
> I figure you've never done a blind test.
You figure wrong. I usually do such comparisons blind. What about you?
Do you do your coparisons blind?
Of course, you can't really
> do a blind test with CD vs. LP since there is always surface noise
> to let you know it's an LP.
No, you can still do them blind. Just select a section where the
musical signal is loud enough to mask any surface noise. Not a
difficult thing to do with just about any title. Surface noise just
isn't that big a problem with my TT and records that are not so badly
damaged.
Scott Wheeler
Thepork...@aol.com
> On 30 Jun 2005 17:45:45 GMT, Thepork...@aol.com wrote:
>
> >Per Stromgren wrote:
> >> On 30 Jun 2005 03:16:37 GMT, "jeffc" <jeff...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> >Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
> >> >which is pure.
> >>
> >> Stewart has described why this argument is wrong in the first place.
> >>
> >> I would like to add that the absolute majority of LP:s are digital
> >> whatever recording techniques was used in the studio!
> >
> >I doubt the absolute majority are digital.
>
> They are now..............
Not likely. I would bet the vast majority of records produced were were
produced before that technology ws being used.
>
> > There sits a
> >> digital delay line in nearly all mastering equipment on the planet,
> >
> >That would be interesting to investigate. It shouldn't be that hard
> >since thee are only a few places that still cut laquers.
>
> Indeed - which should tell you something, all by itself.
That excellence becomes marginalized by convenience and economic
influences. I already knew that. McDonalds remind me of that fact every
time I see one.
>
> >> and this delay line is implemented by a digital design... The delay
> >> line is used to autmatically give way for loud passages on the master.
> >> When the LP-sleeve says "Absolute Pure Analogue", I would guess most
> >> of them are right, but only at the input of the mastering equipment.
> >
> >I think a great deal of the world's LPs were made without such a device
> >in the chain.
>
> IIRC, the old analogue mastering tape consoles had an extra playback
> head to provide the required 'read ahead' time delay needed for
> Varigroove operation.
Um yeah. Your point?
>
> >> So, folks, vinyl lovers listen to digital all the time and likes it.
> >
> >But digital isn't the issue it is CDs v. LPs. Indeed I have some LPs
> >made from digital recodings that I quite like. I like some, in fact
> >many, better than the CD version. Go figure.
>
> No need for much figgerin' here, as the well-known euphonic artifacts
> of vinyl have been described ad nauseam.
Really? I have yet to see any of them described and I have yet to see
any studies on the matter that support this claim. I'm not saying it
isn't true, maybe it is. One would not know that from the generic
posturing one finds on RAHE on the matter. instead of just claiming it
ad nauseam how about supporting it for a change with some real
evidence?
If you like those, as opposed
> to the neutral transparency of digital, then of course you'll prefer
> vinyl to CD, regardless of the master tape origins. The only time you
> wouldn't is when the LP has been badly mastered.
This is just a load of broad stroked nonsense. I guess you figure every
CD has been mastered and produced exactly the same way. Get a clue and
start listening to the actual CDs and LPs for a change instead of
listening to your overly broad and overly simple presumptions. Just how
many CDs do you really think sound exactly like the original master
tapes? Then tell us what blind comparisons you have made between
original master tapes and their commercial CD releases.
Scott Wheeler
Helen Schmidt
> On 2 Jul 2005 02:03:47 GMT, "Helen Schmidt"
> <music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >Greg Lee wrote:
> >> Helen Schmidt <music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> ...
> >> > Actually, what you have done here is point out exactly the difficulty
> >> > in the "objectivist" position, which is that any "subjective"
> >> > observation which seems to contradict the "objective measurements" is
> >> > put in the category of listener bias, imagination, euphonic distortion,
> >> > etc. It's too general an idea; it can explain away anything and
> >> > everything.
> >>
> >> But that's what always happens with observations that contradict
> >> established theories. They're dismissed. Only new and better
> >> theories can win out. What's wanted from the non-"objectivist"
> >> side is some alternative theoretical understanding. If you don't
> >> want to be explained away, explain.
> >
> >Yes, when new evidence comes in, theories that don't fit are discarded.
>
> That's not what I meant. Sorry, I see that my "they" was ambiguous. I
> meant that the evidence is dismissed (not the theories). Whether there
> is evidence that LPs are higher fidelity is obviously arguable. I'm
> just saying that no such evidence will be taken seriously without a
> new theory that the evidence supports.
>
Evidence that doesn't fit the theory is dismissed? Then how are
theories ever supplanted? In science, evidence that doesn't fit the
theory stimulates a revision of the theory.
Stewart et al have no evidence about subjective state of listeners,
beyond simplified verbal reporting of state that compresses the
percepts themselves.
Helen Schmidt
Thepork...@aol.com
Back at you dude.
>
> >It's very likely you don't care much about those percepts. There's
> >nothing wrong with that; it simply makes your opinion about
> >reproduction of sound merely your opinion, with no special weight above
> >the opinions of others.
>
> Did it ever occur to you that the same argument applies to *your*
> opinion? Guess not................
See above.
>
> >> At the same time, I don't think they arrive at a judgment that vinyl is
> >> more lifelike without taking account of their preferences. I've even
> >> suggested that people may decide first that they prefer the sound, and
> >> then presume that the *reason* they prefer the sound is because it is
> >> more lifelike. If that's the case, then doing research on why some
> >> people find vinyl more life-like would be rather pointless.
> >
> >The funny thing is that it looks to me like many people decide first
> >that they prefer the sound of CD, and then presume the *reason* is the
> >measurements.
>
> The much funnier thing is that it looks to me like some people decide
> first that they prefer the sound of vinyl, then they presume the
> *reason* is that there is some mysterious 'unknown to science'
> mechanism which causes this preference.
Well how was it for you? Did you actually think you would prefe vinyl
to CDs and then after doing careful comparisons decide othewise or did
your results match your expectations? How do you know you didn't
already make up your mind before you ever listened? Do you think you
are immune to biases?
Strange that they completely
> discount all the well-known euphonic distortions which easily explain
> their personal preference.
What are those well known euphonic distortions and what studies have
shown them to be euphonic?
Scott Wheeler
Helen Schmidt
> Actually, what you have done here is point out exactly the difficulty
> in the "objectivist" position, which is that any "subjective"
> observation which seems to contradict the "objective measurements"
There are no objective measurements of subjective observations, save
the most primitive types corresponding to sonic (sound-related but not
music-related) percepts.
Helen Schmidt
Thepork...@aol.com
> On 1 Jul 2005 19:56:18 GMT, "Helen Schmidt"
> <music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >Jim wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I think, Helen, that you hear what you want to hear. You hear what fits
> >> the self image you've chosen.
> >
> >Actually, what you have done here is point out exactly the difficulty
> >in the "objectivist" position, which is that any "subjective"
> >observation which seems to contradict the "objective measurements" is
> >put in the category of listener bias, imagination, euphonic distortion,
> >etc. It's too general an idea; it can explain away anything and
> >everything.
>
> Actually, what you've done here is point out exactly the difficulty of
> the 'subjectivist' position, which is that any 'objective' observation
> which contradicts the 'subjective impression' is put in the category
> of oversimplification, lack of understanding of higher aesthetics,
> intellectual inferiority (that seems to be your favourite), and lots
> of other vague handwaving with no evidential backup.
Funny almost exactly the same thing an be said of the objectivist
position.
>
> It's too general an argument, and conveniently ignores the *fact* that
> we really *do* understand an awful lot about audio, about human
> perception, and about *why* many people prefer vinyl.
OK stop the hand waving and put up for a change. If you don't like hand
waving this ought to seem like a reasonable request.
The rest of the
> self-justification regarding 'realism' is easily explained by any
> psychologist.
The exact same can be said for those who prefer CDs.
But of course, you don't *want* an explanation, you just
> want to ignore reality and play with your vinyl toys.
And you say subjectivists claim objectivists are guilty of
"oversimplification, lack of understanding of higher aesthetics,
intellectual inferiority." Quite ironic.
Scott Wheeler
Thepork...@aol.com
> On 1 Jul 2005 19:51:02 GMT, "Helen Schmidt"
> <music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >nab...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >>
> >> Now, you might argue that, in *addition* to research on listener
> >> preferences, we might like to see some research on the effectiveness of
> >> audio systems at what you call "re-stimulation of...percepts." I'm not
> >> sure how much work has actually been done on that. It would not be easy
> >> work to do, at least if you want to get beyond simply asking listeners,
> >> "Which of these sounds more realistic?"
> >>
> >Right, and without that research, any correlation of the technical
> >parameters of audio to a certain musical experience is premature. I
> >suggest that objectivists are very premature in claiming that a
> >preference for analog can be "understood" as a preference for certain
> >kinds of distortions.
>
> The whole thing is much simpler than you pretend. Not everyone shares
> *your* preference for vinyl, or your *opinion* that vinyl is more
> 'lifelike', hence there is no need to search for mysterious mechanisms
> in support of your personal opinion.
It isn't just his personal opinion. It is a common opinion held by many
audiophiles with extensive experience with high end Lp playback.
First comes the verifiable
> observation of an effect, *then* comes the search for a cause.
The verifiable observations have been with us since the advent of CDs.
You have claimed over and over again that the effects of "euphonic
distortion" that lead some to prefer Lp playback ove CD playback are
"well known." Now are you saying it hasn't been studied at all? How
about a straight story on this common claim for a change?
>
> >> But a first question you should ponder is, Is there much of a
> >> difference between the two questions? By and large, people who argue
> >> that vinyl sounds more realistic are also the ones who report that they
> >> prefer it. If that is generally the case, the research into preferences
> >> may not be missing so much after all.
> >>
> >You are confusing the words people choose for convenience with the
> >underlying concept. Preference is not simply preference. Some people
> >prefer analog because it sounds more pleasant. Some people prefer it
> >because local patterns (e.g. timbre), sound truer-to-life. The least
> >recognized possibility is that some people prefer it because diffuse
> >patterns (e.g., musical form, and dynamic content) are
> >truer-to-life. Asking someone what they "prefer" doesn't begin to sort
> >through these possiblities.
>
> There you go again, parading your personal *opinion* as a fact.
Pot calls kettle black.
It is
> most definitely *not* a fact that vinyl *is* more 'true to life', that
> is simply your personal opinion.
No it isn't just his opinion. It is a common opinion amoung audiophiles
that are familiar with the sound of high end vinyl playback.
Unfortunately that experience is rare and unfairly dismissed by many.
Hence, there need be no mysterious
> mechanism underlying this more 'lifelike' impression which you have
> formed.
Who has ever said things wer mysterious besids you? Looks like you are
injecting things to create a bias against audiophiles who prefer vinyl.
Interesting that this possibility has never occurred to you.
Interesting that you spend so much time saying the same old things but
neve cite anything to support it.
Scott Wheeler
Russ Button
Oh pick, pick, pick...
I heard what I heard. You weren't there. Nobody else besides my
wife was there and she heard the same thing. This is just an
anecdotal story and is only worth what it is. Everything we truly
know, we know from our own personal experience. Everything
else is just hearsay.
That aside, I'm pleased with my Xitel Inport and plan to use it
quite a bit later this summer to digitize a bunch of old analog
master tapes I have so I can unload my Revox A77.
Russ
Codifus
if you are deliberately aiming low when it comes to digital audio. You
should read this article which I posted before;
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1231751,00.asp
The fact that the Inport's specifications are sub-par to a Creative
soundblaster soundcard does not say much for the Inport at all. The
soundblaster series of Creative soundcards are infamous in the
audiophile community.
If you like the Inport, imagine what a really good soundcard would sound
like!
CD
Thepork...@aol.com
> On 1 Jul 2005 19:55:25 GMT, "jeffc" <jeff...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >"Stewart Pinkerton" <pat...@dircon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:da11g...@news2.newsguy.com...
> >>
> >> 'pure' about vinyl, as it is a very *poor* analogue of the master tape
> >> signal, whereas CD provides a very *good* analogue of that signal.
> >
> >context. It is pure in the sense that it never left the analog domain.
>
> Purity however implies unsullied, and vinyl is seriously sullied by
> surface noise, by rolled-off and summed to mono bass, by inner groove
> distortion, by midrange phase problems, and by severe harmonic
> distortion. Vinyl is 'pure'? I think not..........
>
> >"Analog" itself also has different meanings, as you are well aware, so there
> >is not sense in trying to use a different meaning than I used.
>
> No, analogue has a single meaning, which you appear not to
> undertstand. The electrical signal coming from the microphone(s) is an
> analogue of the original soundfield.
Well, no it's not unless you live in a one dimesional two channel
universe of course. i don't. the soundfield and the signal comming from
the microphone are not analogus at all. That would be a neat trick
though.
What happens to that signal
> between there and the loudspeakers is another matter. If you mean
> vinyl, then say vinyl. BTW, as noted elsewhere, since every modern
> vinyl cutting facility includes a digital delay line for Varigroove
> purposes, *all* new music recordings are digital by definition,
> whether purchased on black or silver discs.
Every? Are you sure about this?
>
> >> BTW, your analogy is also wrong, although a common misconception, as
> >> digital is *not* the equivalent of an 'area under the curve by
> >> histogram' approximation. The reconstruction filter ensures that the
> >> output is a smooth curve, following the original bandwidth-limited
> >> input signal *exactly*, not approximately.
> >
> >"Reconstruction filter", you say? What is that needed for?
>
> It's the matching item for the anti-aliasing filter at the input of
> the ADC, and it reconstructs the correct analogue waveform from the
> raw DAC output histogram which has unwanted RF components. It's needed
> because it's part of the complete AD/DA system. If you don't know
> that, then why are you commenting on the technical aspects of the
> system?
>
> > Did something
> >change from the original signal?
>
> Not necessarily, it's a simple bandwidth limiting component, ensuring
> that only signals of less than half the sampling frequency appear in
> the output signal. Other bandwidth limiting components include studio
> microphones and analogue tape recorders..........
>
> > If you can't follow that analogy, then
> >you're simply not thinking abstractly enough.
>
> What analogy? Are you thinking at all?
Are you?
>
> > No one is saying vinyl
> >doesn't distort the analog signal. And I have not even said the ultimate
> >analog signal coming from the CD player is worse than the signal coming from
> >the phono stage. I am saying digital technology has a fundamental design
> >flaw, and that is that the signal is distorted on purpose. It's inherent in
> >the technology. Whether the end result is more faithful to the original
> >signal is beside the point.
>
> You completely misunderstand digital technology. Within the *sole*
> limitation that the input signal bandwidth must be less than half the
> sampling frequency, digital audio is theoretically *perfect*.
Gotta love theroetical perfection. To bad practical applications don't
follow simple theories in this case.
There
> simply is *no* 'fundamental flaw' such as you ignorantly suggest.
Just a lot of practical ones. I suggest you reread that wonderful AESJ
paper on the making of the Mercury CDs. They found that digital can be
far less than perfect no matter what theories abound.
The
> only real-world distortions are those added by the *analogue* parts of
> the system.
Wrong. You definitely ought to read that paper.
That's why typical CD players exhibit less than 0.01%
> distortion at full output across the entire audio band, and have no
> artifacts whatever above the noise floor.
Thats nice but it doesn't tell the hole story. Did you know that a
stereo that isn't playing has no distortion whatsoever? think about it.
Scott Wheeler
Helen Schmidt
> On 2 Jul 2005 14:47:27 GMT, "Helen Schmidt"
> <music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > And, relative to my listening, vinyl conveys these
> >aspects of form better.
>
> OTOH, relative to *my* listening, CD conveys these aspects of form
> better than does vinyl.
Anyone's concept of truth-to-life is relative to that person's set of
potential concepts and how they are weighted; in short, how they
listen and what they listen for. Although the objectivists would like
to claim some special weight to their opinions about the
life-like-ness of audio systems, their opinions are merely their
opinions, and hold no special weight above the opinions of others.
It appears that a couple of times I wrote "Vinyl is better at XYZ" and
forgot to put "relative to my listening;" however, this was simply an
oversight. (Because I never expected that all other people in the
world would share my experience, I didn't realize how I had to make
this *absolutely clear* to the objectivists.) The objectivists are
quick to remind anyone who starts a sentence "Vinyl is better at ..."
that they are "merely stating an opinion." Funny how they never apply
that to their own opinions about digital.
The real argument here is not about who's opinion is right. That would
be a very boring argument. Of course some people find digital to be
more lifelike and some find analog to be more lifelike. That is
elementary. The real argument is about the way objectivists attempt to
undermine the conceptual basis of opinions they don't like, and their
subtle epistemological errors in doing so.
What does any of this matter, if we aren't going to change our
opinions? After all, I'm not trying to convince Stewart to prefer
vinyl. At the end of the day, Stewart will still like CD, Chung and
Bob and Steven Sullivan will still like the things they like. So why
does this matter?
Personally, the reason it matters to me is the effect on new people
entering the hi-fi field, and kids growing up and starting to learn
about audio. They hear the adults and the more experienced people
assert things about the world, and they are influenced by that. A kid
might hear an explanation of why format XYZ is superior to format ABC,
and he might internalize this assertion, and (and this is key) he
might take this explanation to be a truth about his *subjective*
experience. People are prone to taking objective statements and
thinking they define in some way subjective truth.
This definitely works both ways; I have the same issue with a high-end
salesman who gives an explanation of why vinyl is technically superior
to digital.
So to be more specific about the objectivist's errors:
A pervasive error is what I call the "level transfer fallacy." This
is the notion that all means of characterizing, describing, or
perceiving a signal at one level will transer directly to that signal
at another level. A visual analogy will make clear that this is not
generally true:
Suppose we have a photograph which reproduces a scene. We can inspect
it one of two ways: we can view it as a whole, or we can inspect it
one square cm at a time through a viewfinder. It is trivial to propose
distortions in the photograph which would be perceivable at one level
but not the other. A grainy texture would be far more apparent in
close inspection and possibly invisible at a distance. On the other
hand, a distortion in perspective (such as slight barrel distortion)
would be imperceptible in close inspection, but immediately obvious in
a whole view.
Since the objectivist is no longer concerned that looking at the
low-level details misses some part of the big picture, he then
declares that the lowest level is *fundamental,* absolutely the most
important level to work on in the service of fidelity.
This is an understandable mistake, because often in science, knowledge
is built layer-on-layer. Most complex truths are built on simpler
truths. In mathematics, a theorem can be proven by breaking it down
and proving each component separately. So surely audio perception can
be understood by breaking it into elemental components? Musical form
can be understood by breaking it down into individual notes and
perceiving those notes separately?
No it can't. That's the error--to take the composition property of
objective reality and apply it to subjective reality, where things
aren't the same. Understanding musical notes *does not* move one
closer to understanding musical phrases. Understanding how a
microphone sounds *does not* move one closer to understanding how the
details of music work together to create the musical meaning.
I call this the "subjective composition fallacy"--that subjective
reality can be understood by composing together many smaller
subjective impressions.
Stewart wrote to Jenn:
> I think you'll find that most of us are quite well aware of what
> conductors are trained to do. One thing is certain - it's *not* to
> distinguish, among various reproduction media, which sounds most
> like a live performance on any given system.
Here Stewart is implying that a person such as a recording engineer
works on a more fundamental level than Jenn; that his opinions about
fidelity somehow count more. This is the level transfer fallacy and
the subjective composition fallacy.
Later, Jenn wrote:
> OF COURSE they are above the thresholds of human hearing, or I wouldn't
> be able to hear them. I'm also fairly pretty confident that you
> wouldn't be able to hear what I hear.
Stewart replied:
> Now, exactly what gives you reason to think that?
Stewart is so focused on the low level details he has a hard time even
acknowledging the existence of the higher level. It's *obvious* that a
highly trained conductor like Jenn can hear things Stewart
can't. Someone operating under the level transfer fallacy thinks that
a pattern merely needs to be above the threshold of hearing to be
perceivable.
Later, someone (I think Mark DeBellis) wrote:
>But there is training and there is training. There are lots of
>different things on which one can focus attention, and some are more
>musically significant than others. I'd be inclined to give a lot of
>weight (at least initially) to Jenn's sense of what to listen *for*.
Stewart replied:
> I wouldn't, as she's listening for faults in the *performance*, not
> in the sound quality per se. I'm not saying that she isn't well
> trained and a good listener, just that her specific training gives
> her no special advantage in terms of live vs recorded sound.
Again Stewart is implying her level of perception is not useful in
discriminating live and recorded sound.. very telling that he uses the
word "sound" and not "music," because again he is working on just the
lowest level. The level transfer fallacy and the subjective
composition fallacy is what leads Stewart to think that this level is
more fundamental.
Stewart also wrote:
> Indeed we do, and many of us have been listening to reproduced music
> very carefully for several decades. Some of us even earn our living
> doing just that, and designing better items. I venture to suggest
> that our ears are just as well trained as yours for discriminating
> tiny sonic differences, and pinning down their source.
I was an audiophile for a long time before I took up music composition
as a hobby. There's absolutely no comparison between the way that
listening to audio develops your ear, and the way direct creative
musical expression develops your ear. Yes! They both develop your ear!
But in quite different ways. And although Stewart would like to think
that his training is more fundamental to judging recorded sound, it is
simply one way of perceiving music. Jenn can perceive higher-level
patterns in the sound, which in my opinion, is a far more natural and
relevant to listening to music.. although at the end of the day, 8OTH
Stewart's and Jenn's perspectives are valid.
I would like to see Jenn's perspective inform more kids and newcomers
to the audio field, although of course everyone is free to develop
their hearing as they like.
Helen Schmidt
Stewart Pinkerton
>On 2 Jul 2005 02:03:47 GMT, "Helen Schmidt"
><music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Greg Lee wrote:
>>> Helen Schmidt <music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> ...
>>> > Actually, what you have done here is point out exactly the difficulty
>>> > in the "objectivist" position, which is that any "subjective"
>>> > observation which seems to contradict the "objective measurements" is
>>> > put in the category of listener bias, imagination, euphonic distortion,
>>> > etc. It's too general an idea; it can explain away anything and
>>> > everything.
>>>
>>> But that's what always happens with observations that contradict
>>> established theories. They're dismissed. Only new and better
>>> theories can win out. What's wanted from the non-"objectivist"
>>> side is some alternative theoretical understanding. If you don't
>>> want to be explained away, explain.
>>
>>Yes, when new evidence comes in, theories that don't fit are discarded.
>
>That's not what I meant. Sorry, I see that my "they" was ambiguous. I
>meant that the evidence is dismissed (not the theories). Whether there
>is evidence that LPs are higher fidelity is obviously arguable. I'm
>just saying that no such evidence will be taken seriously without a
>new theory that the evidence supports.
That's not how it works. New theories are only required when there's
evidence to indicate that the old ones are inadequate. Such evidence
is certainly not dismissed. OTOH, there seems to be essentially zero
evidence in support of the 'subjectivist' position here.
BEAR
> Hi,
>
> I've been lurking here recently. There was a post by a self-described
> "newbie" on CD vs. vinyl, which actually leads to a very important
> point. I repeat the post here:
>
<snip>
eaning the whole idea
> and claiming the superiority of "objective evidence." This
> misunderstands so many things, the main thing being that life is not
> "objective evidence versus introspection;" the two can and must be
> integrated. I will postpone this discussion for now, but later I can
> explain how the conclusions of so-called "objective" experiments
> collapse over the shaky foundation of introspective naivety.
>
> Helen
Aside from this looking awfuly lot like a troll, here's the actual answer:
1- some material is not available and never will be on CD
2- CD not analog is a technically superior medium in terms of *most* of
the measurable parameters - the most obvious being S/N and ergo dynamic
range.
3- listened to on Technics TT and Stanton cartridges with somewhat of an
average signal chain to follow, CD is likely to "sound better."
Therefore for the average listener or consumer, CD is the preferred
medium - witness the sales and shift to CD
4- For the sophisticated "high-end" enthusiast or even the budget "DIY"
enthusiast LP does hold some true beauty in terms of the sonic
presentation - which is usually different than what the CD provides, and
sometimes "more pleasant to listen to." You don't usually get this
result with random or run-of-the-mill gear.
5- So, yes one does need to spend some time and/or money in order to get
outstanding results from LP.
Imho, the issues of psychology, visual prejudice, or "objective
measurement" really are moot and irrelevant in their entirety to the
question of how "good" is LP or not.
For those who enjoy LP, it is better that more people than not do not
think LP is any good, that way there are more LPs around for those that
like them? :- )
_-_-bear
Stewart Pinkerton
>Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
>> On 2 Jul 2005 02:06:04 GMT, "jeffc" <jeff...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> >"Gary Rosen" <garym...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> >news:da477...@news3.newsguy.com...
>> >> <Thepork...@aol.com> wrote in message
>> >> news:da1b4...@news4.newsguy.com...
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>> But digital isn't the issue it is CDs v. LPs. Indeed I have some LPs
>> >>> made from digital recodings that I quite like. I like some, in fact
>> >>> many, better than the CD version. Go figure.
>> >>
>> >> I figure you've never done a blind test. Of course, you can't really
>> >> do a blind test with CD vs. LP since there is always surface noise
>> >> to let you know it's an LP.
>> >
>> >No, not really. With a good record and record player, the surface noise can
>> >easily be below level of tape hiss of the master from which the 2 sources
>> >were made.
>>
>> Utter rubbish.
>
>Utter rubbish to your utter rubbish.
No, I bow to your superior ability to produce the stuff.
> I have many 'audiophile' LPs, and master tape noise is
>> *always* lower than record surface noise.
>
>Then you must be using damaged records. Otherwise this is complete
>nonsense or you have a unique selection of "audiophile" LPs or, again
>your LPs are just wrecked by mistracking or poor cleaning methods.
My LPs are mostly in mint condition, since I never buy used items and
I am careful in my cleaning regime. Plus of course you miss one very
obvious point - digital recordings. There's absolutely no question of
being able to hear the natural noise floor of those recordings on LP.
Your persistent claims of physically impossible things for vinyl are
becoming tiresome.
> Indeed, the most basic
>> knowledge of the relevant dynamic ranges of vinyl and 15 ips analogue
>> tape would indicate how risible is your claim. OTOH, I have many rock
>> and pop records where tape noise is certainly audible.... :-(
>
>But you can't hear tape hiss on any of your audiophile LPs? Something
>is wrong there.
I can often hear tape hiss in quiet passages, and particularly if it's
faded out between tracks, but it's generally *below* the surface
noise. As you'd expect.
Stewart Pinkerton
>Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
>> On 1 Jul 2005 19:51:02 GMT, "Helen Schmidt"
>> <music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> >nab...@hotmail.com wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Now, you might argue that, in *addition* to research on listener
>> >> preferences, we might like to see some research on the effectiveness of
>> >> audio systems at what you call "re-stimulation of...percepts." I'm not
>> >> sure how much work has actually been done on that. It would not be easy
>> >> work to do, at least if you want to get beyond simply asking listeners,
>> >> "Which of these sounds more realistic?"
>> >>
>> >Right, and without that research, any correlation of the technical
>> >parameters of audio to a certain musical experience is premature. I
>> >suggest that objectivists are very premature in claiming that a
>> >preference for analog can be "understood" as a preference for certain
>> >kinds of distortions.
>>
>> The whole thing is much simpler than you pretend. Not everyone shares
>> *your* preference for vinyl, or your *opinion* that vinyl is more
>> 'lifelike', hence there is no need to search for mysterious mechanisms
>> in support of your personal opinion.
>
>It isn't just his personal opinion. It is a common opinion held by many
>audiophiles with extensive experience with high end Lp playback.
A preference for CD is also a common opinion held by many
audiophiles with extensive experience with high end LP playback.
> First comes the verifiable
>> observation of an effect, *then* comes the search for a cause.
>
>The verifiable observations have been with us since the advent of CDs.
No, they most certainly have not. The majority opinion was *always*
that, while CD certainly wasn't 'perfect sound forever', it was
definitely a significant advance over vinyl. Only a tiny but very
vocal minority disagreed - and that has not changed.
> It is
>> most definitely *not* a fact that vinyl *is* more 'true to life', that
>> is simply your personal opinion.
>
>No it isn't just his opinion. It is a common opinion amoung audiophiles
>that are familiar with the sound of high end vinyl playback.
>Unfortunately that experience is rare and unfairly dismissed by many.
You're just attempting to trot out the worn-out and snobbish old "if
you prefer CD, that's because you've never heard top-class LP"
argument, which simply doesn't wash. Lots of audiophiles with
extensive experience of top-class LP playback prefer CD. That being
the case, there's no need to search for any mechanism which causes LP
to be 'more lifelike', because it simply isn't for most listeners.
Stewart Pinkerton
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
I may not, but Al certainly does! Once again I ask, did you not read
the posts regarding the development of perceptual codecs such as MP3,
AAC, Dolby etc? They are based on *massive* amounts of research into
the subjective state of listeners, specifically their ability to
detect any difference between the original sound and the lossy
compressed version.
Stewart Pinkerton
>Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
>> On 30 Jun 2005 17:45:45 GMT, Thepork...@aol.com wrote:
>>
>> >Per Stromgren wrote:
>> >> On 30 Jun 2005 03:16:37 GMT, "jeffc" <jeff...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> >Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
>> >> >which is pure.
>> >>
>> >> Stewart has described why this argument is wrong in the first place.
>> >>
>> >> I would like to add that the absolute majority of LP:s are digital
>> >> whatever recording techniques was used in the studio!
>> >
>> >I doubt the absolute majority are digital.
>>
>> They are now..............
>
>Not likely. I would bet the vast majority of records produced were were
>produced before that technology ws being used.
Which part of 'now' did you fail to comprehend? I'm referring to
*current* production, not the contents of everyone's attics.
>> > There sits a
>> >> digital delay line in nearly all mastering equipment on the planet,
>> >
>> >That would be interesting to investigate. It shouldn't be that hard
>> >since thee are only a few places that still cut laquers.
>>
>> Indeed - which should tell you something, all by itself.
>
>That excellence becomes marginalized by convenience and economic
>influences. I already knew that. McDonalds remind me of that fact every
>time I see one.
And yet the world remains full of excellent restaurants, which have
not been superceded by something comprehensively superior - unlike
vinyl.
>> >> and this delay line is implemented by a digital design... The delay
>> >> line is used to autmatically give way for loud passages on the master.
>> >> When the LP-sleeve says "Absolute Pure Analogue", I would guess most
>> >> of them are right, but only at the input of the mastering equipment.
>> >
>> >I think a great deal of the world's LPs were made without such a device
>> >in the chain.
>>
>> IIRC, the old analogue mastering tape consoles had an extra playback
>> head to provide the required 'read ahead' time delay needed for
>> Varigroove operation.
>
>Um yeah. Your point?
Simply agreeing that different technologies were used in olden days.
*Current* production however, is entirely digital.
>> >> So, folks, vinyl lovers listen to digital all the time and likes it.
>> >
>> >But digital isn't the issue it is CDs v. LPs. Indeed I have some LPs
>> >made from digital recodings that I quite like. I like some, in fact
>> >many, better than the CD version. Go figure.
>>
>> No need for much figgerin' here, as the well-known euphonic artifacts
>> of vinyl have been described ad nauseam.
>
>Really? I have yet to see any of them described and I have yet to see
>any studies on the matter that support this claim.
Were that true, it woukld indicate a *severe* lack of
attention.........
> I'm not saying it
>isn't true, maybe it is. One would not know that from the generic
>posturing one finds on RAHE on the matter. instead of just claiming it
>ad nauseam how about supporting it for a change with some real
>evidence?
Just go look up noise masking, for starters. Lots of research there by
the perceptual coding guys.
> If you like those, as opposed
>> to the neutral transparency of digital, then of course you'll prefer
>> vinyl to CD, regardless of the master tape origins. The only time you
>> wouldn't is when the LP has been badly mastered.
>
>This is just a load of broad stroked nonsense.
It's backed by your every post. You are a vinylphile who cooks up all
kinds of preposterous nonsense in support of your personal preference.
> I guess you figure every
>CD has been mastered and produced exactly the same way.
Nope, there are *lots* of badly recorded and/or mastered CDs out
there. Ditto for LP, of course.
>Get a clue and
>start listening to the actual CDs and LPs for a change
I do that all the time - in fact I'm doing it now.
> instead of
>listening to your overly broad and overly simple presumptions. Just how
>many CDs do you really think sound exactly like the original master
>tapes?
Most of them.
> Then tell us what blind comparisons you have made between
>original master tapes and their commercial CD releases.
None. OTOH, I've made a few dozen such comparisons between 15ips
two-track analogue tapes and their CD-R copies.
Thepork...@aol.com
> On 2 Jul 2005 17:45:43 GMT, Thepork...@aol.com wrote:
>
> >Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
> >> On 30 Jun 2005 17:45:45 GMT, Thepork...@aol.com wrote:
> >>
> >> >Per Stromgren wrote:
> >> >> On 30 Jun 2005 03:16:37 GMT, "jeffc" <jeff...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> >Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
> >> >> >which is pure.
> >> >>
> >> >> Stewart has described why this argument is wrong in the first place.
> >> >>
> >> >> I would like to add that the absolute majority of LP:s are digital
> >> >> whatever recording techniques was used in the studio!
> >> >
> >> >I doubt the absolute majority are digital.
> >>
> >> They are now..............
> >
> >Not likely. I would bet the vast majority of records produced were were
> >produced before that technology ws being used.
>
> Which part of 'now' did you fail to comprehend?
What part of absolute majority did you fail to understand? If you
didn't mean absolute majority why say it?
I'm referring to
> *current* production, not the contents of everyone's attics.
Then absolute majority was a poor choice of words. Try to say what you
mean please. Would it have been so hard to say curent production to
begin with?
>
> >> > There sits a
> >> >> digital delay line in nearly all mastering equipment on the planet,
> >> >
> >> >That would be interesting to investigate. It shouldn't be that hard
> >> >since thee are only a few places that still cut laquers.
> >>
> >> Indeed - which should tell you something, all by itself.
> >
> >That excellence becomes marginalized by convenience and economic
> >influences. I already knew that. McDonalds remind me of that fact every
> >time I see one.
>
> And yet the world remains full of excellent restaurants,
As well as excellent turntables, pickup arms and cartridges.
which have
> not been superceded by something comprehensively superior - unlike
> vinyl.
They certainly have been superceded in sales by the likes of McDonalds,
just like vinyl.
>
> >> >> and this delay line is implemented by a digital design... The delay
> >> >> line is used to autmatically give way for loud passages on the master.
> >> >> When the LP-sleeve says "Absolute Pure Analogue", I would guess most
> >> >> of them are right, but only at the input of the mastering equipment.
> >> >
> >> >I think a great deal of the world's LPs were made without such a device
> >> >in the chain.
> >>
> >> IIRC, the old analogue mastering tape consoles had an extra playback
> >> head to provide the required 'read ahead' time delay needed for
> >> Varigroove operation.
> >
> >Um yeah. Your point?
>
> Simply agreeing that different technologies were used in olden days.
> *Current* production however, is entirely digital.
Are you sure about that?
>
> >> >> So, folks, vinyl lovers listen to digital all the time and likes it.
> >> >
> >> >But digital isn't the issue it is CDs v. LPs. Indeed I have some LPs
> >> >made from digital recodings that I quite like. I like some, in fact
> >> >many, better than the CD version. Go figure.
> >>
> >> No need for much figgerin' here, as the well-known euphonic artifacts
> >> of vinyl have been described ad nauseam.
> >
> >Really? I have yet to see any of them described and I have yet to see
> >any studies on the matter that support this claim.
>
> Were that true, it woukld indicate a *severe* lack of
> attention.........
Balony. I se you failed to do once again. Posturing is no substitute
for substance. "Where's the beef?" "Show me the money." You have to the
best of my knowledge no one has prsented anything that would support
the claims about euphonic distortions being the source of preference
for vinyl. Please cite your source. Can you point out any AESJ papers
supporting your claims? It's time to put up or shut up.
>
> > I'm not saying it
> >isn't true, maybe it is. One would not know that from the generic
> >posturing one finds on RAHE on the matter. instead of just claiming it
> >ad nauseam how about supporting it for a change with some real
> >evidence?
>
> Just go look up noise masking, for starters. Lots of research there by
> the perceptual coding guys.
Oh balony. As far as I can see you are just making things up. Prove me
wrong and show us the research.
>
> > If you like those, as opposed
> >> to the neutral transparency of digital, then of course you'll prefer
> >> vinyl to CD, regardless of the master tape origins. The only time you
> >> wouldn't is when the LP has been badly mastered.
> >
> >This is just a load of broad stroked nonsense.
>
> It's backed by your every post.
How would you know? you seem to miss their points quite consistantly.
You are a vinylphile who cooks up all
> kinds of preposterous nonsense in support of your personal preference.
Prove it. Quotes please. Till then your posturing is noted.
>
> > I guess you figure every
> >CD has been mastered and produced exactly the same way.
>
> Nope, there are *lots* of badly recorded and/or mastered CDs out
> there. Ditto for LP, of course.
Unfortunately your claims about the CD v. LP debate completely ignore
this important fact. Hence my claim that your views are overly broad
and overly simple. But hey, if you do pay attention to these things
then you would have also encountered cases where digitally recorded
albums actually sonded beter on LP than CD but I bet you can't name one
example. Again, I think you pay too little attention to reality and too
much attention to your broad stroked biases and over simplifications.
>
> >Get a clue and
> >start listening to the actual CDs and LPs for a change
>
> I do that all the time - in fact I'm doing it now.
Please excuse my skeptism but I doubt one who really listens to
variations of masterings and recordings with an open mind would make
such broad an simplistic claims about CDs v. Lps as you do with
regularity.
>
> > instead of
> >listening to your overly broad and overly simple presumptions. Just how
> >many CDs do you really think sound exactly like the original master
> >tapes?
>
> Most of them.
Well there you go. Thank you for confirming my point. Again, i suggest
you reread that wonderful AESJ article that outlines the pitfalls of
turning a master tape into a CD. It becomes quite clear that most
commercial CDs are anything but exactly like the master tapes from
which they come.
>
> > Then tell us what blind comparisons you have made between
> >original master tapes and their commercial CD releases.
>
> None.
Yeah I figured. I suggest you pay attention to what the folks who
actually make those comparisons say on the subject.
OTOH, I've made a few dozen such comparisons between 15ips
> two-track analogue tapes and their CD-R copies.
To bad that is totally irrelevant.
Scott Wheeler
Mike Gilmour
I find the opposite that tape hiss is considerably above that of the records
surface noise, fade out between tracks is very clearly heard. A
combination of stylus profile, cartridge quality, machine cleaned vinyl and
high-end phono stage. I do have valve hiss but this is barely discernable
by ear due selected low noise signal valves.
I'm really surprised that you find the reverse to be true.
Mike
Stewart Pinkerton
<music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
>> On 2 Jul 2005 14:47:27 GMT, "Helen Schmidt"
>> <music314...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > And, relative to my listening, vinyl conveys these
>> >aspects of form better.
>>
>> OTOH, relative to *my* listening, CD conveys these aspects of form
>> better than does vinyl.
>
>Anyone's concept of truth-to-life is relative to that person's set of
>potential concepts and how they are weighted; in short, how they
>listen and what they listen for. Although the objectivists would like
>to claim some special weight to their opinions about the
>life-like-ness of audio systems, their opinions are merely their
>opinions, and hold no special weight above the opinions of others.
You mistake the position. Objectivists mostly report what is
verifiable. Regarding their *personal* opinions, I haven't seen anyone
claim excessive weight. OTOH, the 'subjectivists' are utterly
notorious for claims of heavier weight for their personal opinions,
Jenn and Scott Wheeler being prime examples. Indeed, *you* seem to be
claiming a degree of intellectual superiority which is not supported
by your posted arguments......
In that vein, note that my comment above is a simple negation of your
own statement, with no claim of superiority on my part.
>It appears that a couple of times I wrote "Vinyl is better at XYZ" and
>forgot to put "relative to my listening;" however, this was simply an
>oversight. (Because I never expected that all other people in the
>world would share my experience, I didn't realize how I had to make
>this *absolutely clear* to the objectivists.) The objectivists are
>quick to remind anyone who starts a sentence "Vinyl is better at ..."
>that they are "merely stating an opinion." Funny how they never apply
>that to their own opinions about digital.
That's because most such statements about digital relate to readily
verifiable *facts*, not to mere opinions.
>The real argument here is not about who's opinion is right. That would
>be a very boring argument. Of course some people find digital to be
>more lifelike and some find analog to be more lifelike. That is
>elementary.
Had you thought about that statement, you might not have posted it. If
it's 'elementary' that opinions on this matter will vary, why are you
attempting to build an absolute argument in favour of one opinion?
>The real argument is about the way objectivists attempt to
>undermine the conceptual basis of opinions they don't like, and their
>subtle epistemological errors in doing so.
>
>What does any of this matter, if we aren't going to change our
>opinions? After all, I'm not trying to convince Stewart to prefer
>vinyl. At the end of the day, Stewart will still like CD, Chung and
>Bob and Steven Sullivan will still like the things they like. So why
>does this matter?
>
>Personally, the reason it matters to me is the effect on new people
>entering the hi-fi field, and kids growing up and starting to learn
>about audio. They hear the adults and the more experienced people
>assert things about the world, and they are influenced by that. A kid
>might hear an explanation of why format XYZ is superior to format ABC,
>and he might internalize this assertion, and (and this is key) he
>might take this explanation to be a truth about his *subjective*
>experience. People are prone to taking objective statements and
>thinking they define in some way subjective truth.
If I drop an anvil on your head from twenty feet up, it *will* do you
severe damage, and will probably kill you. This doesn't require much
in the way of philosophical argument or 'subjective internalisation'.
>This definitely works both ways; I have the same issue with a high-end
>salesman who gives an explanation of why vinyl is technically superior
>to digital.
Ah, would that involve purity and infinite resolution? :-)
>So to be more specific about the objectivist's errors:
or, to be even more specific, your *claims* that they are errors....
>A pervasive error is what I call the "level transfer fallacy." This
>is the notion that all means of characterizing, describing, or
>perceiving a signal at one level will transer directly to that signal
>at another level. A visual analogy will make clear that this is not
>generally true:
>
>Suppose we have a photograph which reproduces a scene. We can inspect
>it one of two ways: we can view it as a whole, or we can inspect it
>one square cm at a time through a viewfinder. It is trivial to propose
>distortions in the photograph which would be perceivable at one level
>but not the other. A grainy texture would be far more apparent in
>close inspection and possibly invisible at a distance. On the other
>hand, a distortion in perspective (such as slight barrel distortion)
>would be imperceptible in close inspection, but immediately obvious in
>a whole view.
Agreed.
>Since the objectivist is no longer concerned that looking at the
>low-level details misses some part of the big picture, he then
>declares that the lowest level is *fundamental,* absolutely the most
>important level to work on in the service of fidelity.
BZZZZT! Who ever made such a statement?
>This is an understandable mistake, because often in science, knowledge
>is built layer-on-layer. Most complex truths are built on simpler
>truths. In mathematics, a theorem can be proven by breaking it down
>and proving each component separately. So surely audio perception can
>be understood by breaking it into elemental components? Musical form
>can be understood by breaking it down into individual notes and
>perceiving those notes separately?
>
>No it can't. That's the error--to take the composition property of
>objective reality and apply it to subjective reality, where things
>aren't the same. Understanding musical notes *does not* move one
>closer to understanding musical phrases. Understanding how a
>microphone sounds *does not* move one closer to understanding how the
>details of music work together to create the musical meaning.
It does however move one closer to understanding how closely the
reproduced sound can match the original soundfield. This would appear
to be a basic mistake on your part.
>I call this the "subjective composition fallacy"--that subjective
>reality can be understood by composing together many smaller
>subjective impressions.
I call this vague handwaving, and fundamentally flawed.
>Stewart wrote to Jenn:
>
>> I think you'll find that most of us are quite well aware of what
>> conductors are trained to do. One thing is certain - it's *not* to
>> distinguish, among various reproduction media, which sounds most
>> like a live performance on any given system.
>
>Here Stewart is implying that a person such as a recording engineer
>works on a more fundamental level than Jenn; that his opinions about
>fidelity somehow count more. This is the level transfer fallacy and
>the subjective composition fallacy.
I do wish you'd stop making up spurious terminology, and then claiming
failure on the part of another.
It is the purpose of a conductor to maximise the musical value of a
live performance. It is the purpose of a recording engineer (given
that we're talking about a 'live' recording) to capture the musical
integrity of a live performance and deliver that to the mixdown master
tape. Which person would you consider to be more aware of the
fundamentals of the *reproduction* of music?
>Later, Jenn wrote:
>
>> OF COURSE they are above the thresholds of human hearing, or I wouldn't
>> be able to hear them. I'm also fairly pretty confident that you
>> wouldn't be able to hear what I hear.
>
>Stewart replied:
>
>> Now, exactly what gives you reason to think that?
>
>Stewart is so focused on the low level details he has a hard time even
>acknowledging the existence of the higher level. It's *obvious* that a
>highly trained conductor like Jenn can hear things Stewart
>can't.
Is it? In terms of fidelity to an original live performance? Why?
>Someone operating under the level transfer fallacy thinks that
>a pattern merely needs to be above the threshold of hearing to be
>perceivable.
It must be nice to be able to assign failure on the basis of a
terminology you just made up.
>Later, someone (I think Mark DeBellis) wrote:
>
>>But there is training and there is training. There are lots of
>>different things on which one can focus attention, and some are more
>>musically significant than others. I'd be inclined to give a lot of
>>weight (at least initially) to Jenn's sense of what to listen *for*.
>
>Stewart replied:
>
>> I wouldn't, as she's listening for faults in the *performance*, not
>> in the sound quality per se. I'm not saying that she isn't well
>> trained and a good listener, just that her specific training gives
>> her no special advantage in terms of live vs recorded sound.
>
>Again Stewart is implying her level of perception is not useful in
>discriminating live and recorded sound.. very telling that he uses the
>word "sound" and not "music," because again he is working on just the
>lowest level. The level transfer fallacy and the subjective
>composition fallacy is what leads Stewart to think that this level is
>more fundamental.
You are making assumptions here which have no basis in reality. The
recorded sound is *more* than the music, not less. It includes hall
ambience, audience noise, all the subtle cues that divide the original
performance from the recording. I suggest that it's Jenn who is
operating on the simpler level here.............
Stewart Pinkerton
>Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
>> On 1 Jul 2005 19:55:25 GMT, "jeffc" <jeff...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> >"Stewart Pinkerton" <pat...@dircon.co.uk> wrote in message
>> >news:da11g...@news2.newsguy.com...
>> >>
>> >> This is a common, but completely wrong, argument. There is nothing
>> >> 'pure' about vinyl, as it is a very *poor* analogue of the master tape
>> >> signal, whereas CD provides a very *good* analogue of that signal.
>> >
>> >I didn't say CD provided a bad analog. The "pure" should be taken in
>> >context. It is pure in the sense that it never left the analog domain.
>>
>> Purity however implies unsullied, and vinyl is seriously sullied by
>> surface noise, by rolled-off and summed to mono bass, by inner groove
>> distortion, by midrange phase problems, and by severe harmonic
>> distortion. Vinyl is 'pure'? I think not..........
>>
>> >"Analog" itself also has different meanings, as you are well aware, so there
>> >is not sense in trying to use a different meaning than I used.
>>
>> No, analogue has a single meaning, which you appear not to
>> undertstand. The electrical signal coming from the microphone(s) is an
>> analogue of the original soundfield.
>
>Well, no it's not unless you live in a one dimesional two channel
>universe of course. i don't. the soundfield and the signal comming from
>the microphone are not analogus at all. That would be a neat trick
>though.
I take it that you have never heard of the Calrec Soundfield
microphone? As ever, you attempt to deflect the argument in order to
distract attention to your lack of a substantive argument. This basic
debate is regarding vinyl vs CD, so two-channel reproduction, however
crippled in real terms, is a given.
> What happens to that signal
>> between there and the loudspeakers is another matter. If you mean
>> vinyl, then say vinyl. BTW, as noted elsewhere, since every modern
>> vinyl cutting facility includes a digital delay line for Varigroove
>> purposes, *all* new music recordings are digital by definition,
>> whether purchased on black or silver discs.
>
>Every? Are you sure about this?
I'll cover myself by saying more than 99%, as there may be some
backstreet loon somewhere still using an all-analogue cutting rig.
That's an approximate 99%, BTW, as I seriously doubt that there remain
100 vinyl mastering facilities on the planet.
> Did you know that a
>stereo that isn't playing has no distortion whatsoever? think about it.
OTOH, it also has 100% distortion. Think about it.
Per Stromgren
> What happens to that signal
>> between there and the loudspeakers is another matter. If you mean
>> vinyl, then say vinyl. BTW, as noted elsewhere, since every modern
>> vinyl cutting facility includes a digital delay line for Varigroove
>> purposes, *all* new music recordings are digital by definition,
>> whether purchased on black or silver discs.
>
>Every? Are you sure about this?
Please name one vinyl cutting facility, used above hobby scale, that
doesn't have this!
Per.
Norman M. Schwartz
> to the audio field, although of course everyone is free to develop
> their hearing as they like.
>
performances she has conducted..
nab...@hotmail.com
True, and not an error or fallacy on the objectivist's part. If it were
merely an assumption, as you imply, then it might well be a fallacy.
But it is not an assumption; it is an evidence-based theory. It is a
physical, biological, and psychological fact.
If you have evidence to the contrary, we'd all like to hear it. But if
all you can do is pretend that the evidence against you doesn't exist,
you are contributing nothing.
> This is an understandable mistake, because often in science, knowledge
> is built layer-on-layer. Most complex truths are built on simpler
> truths. In mathematics, a theorem can be proven by breaking it down
> and proving each component separately. So surely audio perception can
> be understood by breaking it into elemental components? Musical form
> can be understood by breaking it down into individual notes and
> perceiving those notes separately?
>
> No it can't. That's the error--to take the composition property of
> objective reality and apply it to subjective reality, where things
> aren't the same. Understanding musical notes *does not* move one
> closer to understanding musical phrases. Understanding how a
> microphone sounds *does not* move one closer to understanding how the
> details of music work together to create the musical meaning.
>
> I call this the "subjective composition fallacy"--that subjective
> reality can be understood by composing together many smaller
> subjective impressions.
This is what we call a straw man. No one claims it. But you need to
pretend that someone claims it, because you need someone easy to argue
with.
bob
Jenn
wrote:
> Just a lot of practical ones. I suggest you reread that wonderful AESJ
> paper on the making of the Mercury CDs. They found that digital can be
> far less than perfect no matter what theories abound.
Is this journal piece available online? I'd really like to read it, as
the Mercury recording scene is a serious hobby of mine. My dear mentor
and friend was Frederick Fennell, who conducted many of the Mercury
classic recordings. Thanks!
Stewart Pinkerton
<mi...@tfjazz.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>"Stewart Pinkerton" <pat...@dircon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:da91p...@news2.newsguy.com...
>> I can often hear tape hiss in quiet passages, and particularly if it's
>> faded out between tracks, but it's generally *below* the surface
>> noise. As you'd expect.
>I find the opposite that tape hiss is considerably above that of the records
>surface noise, fade out between tracks is very clearly heard.
Given that surface noise is *never* more than 75dB below peak cutting
level, even on ridiculously 'hot' cuts, that suggests that you listen
to pretty noisy masters! :-)
> A
>combination of stylus profile, cartridge quality, machine cleaned vinyl and
>high-end phono stage.
None of this can overcome the basic level of surface roughness
exhibited by even the very best 'virgin' vinyl. This is not a matter
of opinion - it's readily measurable.
> I do have valve hiss but this is barely discernable
>by ear due selected low noise signal valves.
>I'm really surprised that you find the reverse to be true.
I'm really surprised that you seem to have no well-recorded LPs....
Stewart Pinkerton
>Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
>> On 2 Jul 2005 17:45:43 GMT, Thepork...@aol.com wrote:
>> > I guess you figure every
>> >CD has been mastered and produced exactly the same way.
>>
>> Nope, there are *lots* of badly recorded and/or mastered CDs out
>> there. Ditto for LP, of course.
>
>Unfortunately your claims about the CD v. LP debate completely ignore
>this important fact.
No, they don't.
> Hence my claim that your views are overly broad
>and overly simple. But hey, if you do pay attention to these things
>then you would have also encountered cases where digitally recorded
>albums actually sonded beter on LP than CD but I bet you can't name one
>example.
Actually no, I can't. This may have something to do withy the fact
that mastering on CD is very straightforward from a digital master.
Esentially, you just push the 'master' button............
Compare and contrast with the required peak limiting, low-level
compression summing to mono below 100Hz, and rolloff above 15kHz and
below 40Hz, that are required for LP mastering.
>Again, I think you pay too little attention to reality and too
>much attention to your broad stroked biases and over simplifications.
I think that you pay no attention at all to reality.
>> >Get a clue and
>> >start listening to the actual CDs and LPs for a change
>>
>> I do that all the time - in fact I'm doing it now.
>
>Please excuse my skeptism but I doubt one who really listens to
>variations of masterings and recordings with an open mind would make
>such broad an simplistic claims about CDs v. Lps as you do with
>regularity.
The differences are both obvious and simple. Only if you are
desperately attempting to justify a personal preference, would you
feel a need to complicate the matter.
Mike Gilmour
news:da9b7...@news4.newsguy.com...
To quote Tim de Paravicini:
"I do ensure that the old digital delay lines for Varigroove are not used.
Most of the stuff cut nowadays is constant pitch anyway, so we dispense with
that sort of thing"
Discuss :-)
Gary Rosen
news:da6iv...@news1.newsguy.com...
> Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
> > On 2 Jul 2005 02:06:04 GMT, "jeffc" <jeff...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > >"Gary Rosen" <garym...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> > >news:da477...@news3.newsguy.com...
> > >> <Thepork...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > >> news:da1b4...@news4.newsguy.com...
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>> But digital isn't the issue it is CDs v. LPs. Indeed I have some LPs
> > >>> made from digital recodings that I quite like. I like some, in fact
> > >>> many, better than the CD version. Go figure.
> > >>
> > >> I figure you've never done a blind test. Of course, you can't really
> > >> do a blind test with CD vs. LP since there is always surface noise
> > >> to let you know it's an LP.
> > >
> > >No, not really. With a good record and record player, the surface
noise can
> > >easily be below level of tape hiss of the master from which the 2
sources
> > >were made.
> >
> > Utter rubbish.
>
>
> Utter rubbish to your utter rubbish.
>
>
> > *always* lower than record surface noise.
>
>
> Then you must be using damaged records. Otherwise this is complete
> nonsense or you have a unique selection of "audiophile" LPs or, again
> your LPs are just wrecked by mistracking or poor cleaning methods.
Are you claiming that an LP being played in any place other than a
clean room can possibly be 100% free of dust and particles? And
shouldn't audiophiles, with their superior discernment and perception,
be able to hear that being tracked by the stylus?
- Gary Rosen
Thepork...@aol.com
people that has become rather repetitive and so is ended. -- deb ]
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
> On 3 Jul 2005 17:26:38 GMT, Thepork...@aol.com wrote:
>
> >Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
> >> On 2 Jul 2005 17:45:43 GMT, Thepork...@aol.com wrote:
>
> >> > I guess you figure every
> >> >CD has been mastered and produced exactly the same way.
> >>
> >> Nope, there are *lots* of badly recorded and/or mastered CDs out
> >> there. Ditto for LP, of course.
> >
> >Unfortunately your claims about the CD v. LP debate completely ignore
> >this important fact.
>
> No, they don't.
Yes they do. I just reviewed this thread. Your claims completely ignore
the important fact that mastering and reccording qualities are major
issues until I raised the issue. Facts is facts.
>
> > Hence my claim that your views are overly broad
> >and overly simple. But hey, if you do pay attention to these things
> >then you would have also encountered cases where digitally recorded
> >albums actually sonded beter on LP than CD but I bet you can't name one
> >example.
>
> Actually no, I can't.
What a surprise. This is indicitive of some one who is simply not doing
that much careful open-minded listening IMO.
This may have something to do withy the fact
> that mastering on CD is very straightforward from a digital master.
No it would most likely have something to do with your limited
experiences and/or biases regarding LP v. CD sound. If you want an
example take
a listen to Peter Gabriel's digit,lly recorded titles when they were
first released on Cd and compare them the the Classic reissues. No
contest, even Gabriel, a
supporter of digital technology agrees. Now if you can tell me what
they did wrong when these CDs were first mastered give it a shot. i
mean if mastering is so straight forward what went wrong there? The
original recordings were digital after all. What went so terribly
wrong? I think the audiophiles who are really interested in better
sound and not so caught up in their desire to be right about things
understand these things happen and make their decisions based on caeful
listening rather than make assumptions based on any particular belief
system. I strongly suspect that any audiophile that cannot name a
situation where the CD sounds better than the Lp or visa versa is
operating out of a belief system rather than relying on careful open
minded comparisons. A lot can happen on the road to making a commercial
CD or LP.
> Esentially, you just push the 'master' button............
It would seem the folks who made those fine CDs of the Mercury catalog
would disagree with you. given their results i would tend to believe
them rather than you, someone with no experience in mastering or
producing commercial CDs.
>
> Compare and contrast with the required peak limiting, low-level
> compression summing to mono below 100Hz, and rolloff above 15kHz and
> below 40Hz, that are required for LP mastering.
Better et listen to the folks who do the best jobs of mastering LPs and
CDs. They seem to disagree with you on all counts. Again i have to give
the pros more credibility.
>
> >Again, I think you pay too little attention to reality and too
> >much attention to your broad stroked biases and over simplifications.
>
> I think that you pay no attention at all to reality.
If careful comparisons instead of judgement via biases is not paying
attention to reality you may be right. I'm not sure what *reality* you
would be refering to though.
>
> >> >Get a clue and
> >> >start listening to the actual CDs and LPs for a change
> >>
> >> I do that all the time - in fact I'm doing it now.
> >
> >Please excuse my skeptism but I doubt one who really listens to
> >variations of masterings and recordings with an open mind would make
> >such broad an simplistic claims about CDs v. Lps as you do with
> >regularity.
>
> The differences are both obvious and simple.
No the differences vary from title to title. so they are not obvious or
simple. Your answers continue to suggest you simply don't know that
much about the subject.
> desperately attempting to justify a personal preference, would you
> feel a need to complicate the matter.
I feel no need to justify my personal preferences. The fact of the
matter is the answers are compluicated and vary from title to title.
This is something any serious audiophile would know.
Scott Wheeler
Jenn
1. I don't tend to give my full name in newsgroups, for obvious reasons
(I was burned in that regard years ago.) But I would be happy to email
it to you, and send you any number of files of my work.
2. The interesting question is: Why do you want it?