A recording is a work of art. It actually does not make any difference whether the sounds on the recording are originally acoustic or entirely computer generated (you may like acoustic sounds of course but that is a different topic). In any case it is important that the listener's own system changes the input signal as little as possible since the listener is not the creator of the work of art. It is true that "realism" may be an outdated concept. However it does not follow from this that "anything goes" on the reproduction side of things.
DACs vs Turntables
- Thread starter hermit
- Start date
tuga
Legal Alien
Why?
I prefer a more accurate reproduction but others may/do not. And ultimately what really matters is listening enjoyment.
So tone controls and digital room correction and other types of processing are bad?
If we believe that room acoustics plays a major part in what you hear, then shouldn't we also model our listening space to match what the recording engineer enjoys?
They are a massive part of what sound waves actually go in your ears, but your brain has an amazing ability to remove this, so you can hear through the room to the original material. It's why nearfield monitoring is so popular, as if you give the brain a bit of a head start (if the direct signal is higher in level and ahead in time from the room reflections) you learn to ignore the contradictory signal from the room which might have a totally different acoustic space than the recording.
If you go the other way, and remove the room reflections, basically try and make your room anechoic, then although your brain isn't having to fight those reflections, you get a very odd disconnected experience when your visual senses say the room is a certain size, but you don't hear it. This is why you'll probably find that if your room is somewhat dead, you'll find it easier to believe the music if you turn the lights down low.
Basically there's a whole world of options to attempt to fool your perception into accepting the illusion of music reproduction at home, and different people respond differently to different solutions. No one size fits all here.
My point was slightly tongue in cheek, but yes you are right.
As others have said, the discussions seems to have moved to "are we trying to recreate an artistic piece as intended by the creator", or "are we merely interpreting the artistic piece" (IMO).
I'm probably more of the latter. I think a good example is the Joe Jackson album : Body and Soul.
He went to great lengths to find an acoustic space to give him the sound he wanted. I don't think I will ever get to experience that place myself, but I can appreciate the mood which the venue creates. I'm more interested in that, compared with the accuracy of the trombone tone for example.
This is not true. Nearfeild monitoring is primarily used by people who have a specific interest in hearing only what's in the signal, in a sound production environment for instance. The vast majority of domestic Hi-Fi users do not listen nearfeild, even if they could.
The brain does not remove the room reflections, how would that even be possible? We enjoy the full and rich sound created by appropriate room reflections as they give a better approximation of live music. Have you ever been in an anechoic room? It's weird as hell and not somewhere you'd want to listen to music in, or even spend much time in. The entire premise of your argument seems wrong to me.
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gustav_errata
pfm Member
Is it the recording that is the work of art or is it the performance that it captures (be it acoustic or digital)? If I buy a print of a painting, is it the print itself that is the art or is the art in the image that it portrays to my retina?
The "input signal" is an amalgamation of vibrations on microphone diaphragms, electrical currents from instruments plugged straight into the mixing desk, direct digital synthesis, and analog or digital processing of these signals. The recording is not music. It is merely one component in the remote conveyance of music to your ears. The art ended the moment it was recorded. Since only one component of that original chain, the microphone diaphragms, captures the movement of air caused by sound waves in the studio, and there is a whole mountain of other things on top of that component that alter the signal, to claim that the air movements caused by your speakers are somehow more or less accurate to the sound waves moving the air in the studio is nonsense.
And then, by the way, the recording first takes a trip to the mastering engineer, whose job isn't to make sure that the recording "stays true" to the sound in the studio, in which case they would just do nothing. Instead the mastering engineer alters the recording further to ensure that it will sound "good" on as wide of a variety of systems as possible.
So your quest to achieve perfection is quixotic at best because there is no standard by which "perfection" can possibly be measured. Low distortion of your components cannot account for all the other alterations that happened along the way. Nor can it account for distortions caused by your room, the shape of your head, the shape of your ears, the state of your ear canals, etc. Better to accept that distortion will happen and use it to your advantage to shape the sound so that it is most pleasing to you. If that means near 0 distortion in your DAC, fine, but keep in mind that that is merely your objective, not the objective.
The systems I've heard over the years which have been designed to be low colouration or low distortion have invariably been among the worst I've heard. The recorded signal alone seems unable to create a rich and realistic illusion of live music. A degree of added colouration from the room and equipment seems highly desirable and effective.
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tuga
Legal Alien
Room correction is actually improving the accuracy of the signal at the listening spot.
tuga
Legal Alien
Unless we are dealing with classical music and perhaps some jazz, a recording is hardly ever a captured performance.
Relative to what?
But you are fundamentally altering the signal itself. If this is not only acceptable but adventitious in this instance, how can it be said that other colouration or alteration cannot likewise be a good thing?
tuga
Legal Alien
Relative to the audio signal.
You are altering/adjusting the signal in order to remove room-induced colouration/distortion at the listening spot.
Definitely not the same as adding colouration/distortion.
But the room is still adding colouration. All room correction does is alter the nature of it. It does not turn the room into an anechoic chamber, as that would sound horrible.
So why is this controlled degree of room colouration good but every other form of coolouration bad?
I give up. Sure, you are right, i'm wrong. Whatever.
gustav_errata
pfm Member
Performance wasn't the right word, but here I include writing music in a digital paradigm. Basically everything before the final mixing and mixdown. Recordings of popular music do capture performances, however typically they are separate for each performer rather than as an ensemble.
Del monaco
Del Monaco
This is a really interesting discussion. There are so many factors that contribute to putting a smile on my face when listening to music. Experiences are never consistent for me, whether in a concert hall or in front of various hifi formats. The quality of sound is dependent upon so many factors. And with live music making it’s more than just the sound of course. When I sit in front of my hifi it’s mostly enjoyable.I’m firstly enjoying the music, then the sound it’s making. Sometimes, I’m pulled up short when the two merge in harmony and the performance lifts. It could be that it feels and sounds a little more real, it could be that my own involvement and investment in the music has heightened, it could be that some ear wax has shifted.I can’t really place it. I once sat in front a friend playing a saxophone. It was thrilling.I could hear the effort, the breathing, the brassy, rasping bloom of the instrument. There’s a thrill to being so close to music making. Despite the fact that I’ve listened to many systems, from modest to very expensive, I’ve never heard music presented in that way or affecting me in that way.even the concert hall doesn’t do this. Images can feel three dimensional, immediate and breathtaking but there’s always that little extra missing that makes it as real as sitting right in front of the instrument or vocalist. It’s hifi after all.
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John Phillips
pfm Member
I see people applying "accuracy" to a complete system for reproducing an acoustic event. However I think two-channel stereo is fundamentally incapable of doing that.
But "accuracy" can be applied more judiciously to parts of a system, in particular in the sense of "lack of inaccuracy".
IME digital storage and transmission can be achieved with a level of inaccuracy that is too low to be of impact. Accuracy in the sense of preserving the digital file the mastering engineer produced. That's what I certainly aim for and think I can achieve.
Coming to DACs as in the thread title, there is a mathematical standard of accuracy for converting a stream of data into audio voltage. Some may like this and others not but that's a different matter. Today very low levels of inaccuracy can be achieved for very little money. In my approach to audio that's the sort of accuracy I want to achieve, but it seems to me if you prefer something different it will cost rather more.
So, for a digital-only system that leaves me to choose loudspeakers/amplifier for my room to suit my audio preference and contribute to my enjoyment. Accuracy here is a much more problematic concept, which stereo itself fails. But with this approach I can substitute components in the digital domain and preserve my preference.
As far as overall performance is concerned my very non-audiophile yardstick is to achieve "credible" BBC Radio 3 concert broadcasts from concert halls I know, and other sources have to follow. These are never "accurate" compared to my own experience. Indeed, the engineers usually achieve better sound than I experience in most seats in the hall. That's the closest I think can be come to accuracy overall.
Moving on to the thread title's turntables (+arm +cartridge) there is another electro-acoustic conversion to be chosen; IMHO, on the basis of preference more than accuracy. I no longer have the means to reproduce the vinyl I still have so I don't know how I might apply accuracy or preference here.
But "accuracy" can be applied more judiciously to parts of a system, in particular in the sense of "lack of inaccuracy".
IME digital storage and transmission can be achieved with a level of inaccuracy that is too low to be of impact. Accuracy in the sense of preserving the digital file the mastering engineer produced. That's what I certainly aim for and think I can achieve.
Coming to DACs as in the thread title, there is a mathematical standard of accuracy for converting a stream of data into audio voltage. Some may like this and others not but that's a different matter. Today very low levels of inaccuracy can be achieved for very little money. In my approach to audio that's the sort of accuracy I want to achieve, but it seems to me if you prefer something different it will cost rather more.
So, for a digital-only system that leaves me to choose loudspeakers/amplifier for my room to suit my audio preference and contribute to my enjoyment. Accuracy here is a much more problematic concept, which stereo itself fails. But with this approach I can substitute components in the digital domain and preserve my preference.
As far as overall performance is concerned my very non-audiophile yardstick is to achieve "credible" BBC Radio 3 concert broadcasts from concert halls I know, and other sources have to follow. These are never "accurate" compared to my own experience. Indeed, the engineers usually achieve better sound than I experience in most seats in the hall. That's the closest I think can be come to accuracy overall.
Moving on to the thread title's turntables (+arm +cartridge) there is another electro-acoustic conversion to be chosen; IMHO, on the basis of preference more than accuracy. I no longer have the means to reproduce the vinyl I still have so I don't know how I might apply accuracy or preference here.
tuga
Legal Alien
You can correct the impulse reponse of the speakers and you can also EQ the peaks which the room generates at a particular listening spot.
Have you ever listened to speakers in an anechoic chamber?
Colouration/distortion is a matter of taste. Some types sound nice to some people which is why they're called euphonic. In my view and experience and relatively limited understanding all types of colouration/distortion produce negative side-effects.
In regard to room induced colouration/distortion, Toole's research seems to indicate that many people enjoy side-wall reflections (they produce wider phantom images and an increased sense of envelopment).
Side-wall reflections are a form of colouration/distortion.
tuga
Legal Alien
A credible illusion depends first and foremost on the way a live unamplified performance is mic'ed.
But it will still be limited by stereo over speakers constraints, the most notable being its inability to recreate the original soundfield: both direct and reflected sound come from the same 2 sound sources (the speakers).
tuga
Legal Alien
And sometimes, very often perhaps, the ensemble is not captured playing together.