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what really happened during the late 70s early 80s in the hifi press

From my perspective a decent Hi-Fi system should deliver high performance regardless whether it’s simple acoustic work, or heavily mixed & mastered rock and pop type stuff - I do not buy into the concept of a system designed around a genre of music or recording quality (if the recording is bad, you simply hear it as bad…but can still enjoy the music).
 
Octavian said:
Quite the contrary, I think. Artificial recordings created in the studio represent "the art of recorded music" even more than the typical classical recording aesthetic. That is the reason why accuracy must be the ultimate goal in domestic hifi. Sadly it usually is not. Part of the reason is the populist hifi propaganda from the 70s and 80s when tapping feet and bopping heads were supposed to be all that mattered.
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If that were true, music would only be mixed, not mastered, as the role of mastering is to make the final mixdown a) compatible with the different formats and b) sound as good as possible on a wide variety of systems and in any space. It's why mastering studios always have a pair of shit speakers on hand and why there are different masters for vinyl, CD and streaming.

If you're not listening in an anechoic chamber with your ears surgically replaced with the engineer's ears, you won't have accuracy, period. Modern recorded music does not seek to reproduce an event in your room but rather to create a new event with your room (or headphones), so "accuracy" is irrelevant and "hi-fi" is meaningless other than as a handy signifier to use in conversation when referring to gear with better frequency ranges, lower noise, etc than common consumer electronics.
 
Robert said:
Bring back the little HFC A5 books. Those were excellent and i loved the format.
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I have a few of those. Alas, not all. IIRC one gave an odd review of an Armstrong 600 tuner because it had accidentally included the cap for the USA deemphasis on one channel and no-one had noticed! 8-]
 
Dowser said:
From my perspective a decent Hi-Fi system should deliver high performance regardless whether it’s simple acoustic work, or heavily mixed & mastered rock and pop type stuff - I do not buy into the concept of a system designed around a genre of music or recording quality (if the recording is bad, you simply hear it as bad…but can still enjoy the music).
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Sort of.
If speakers can reproduce acoustic instruments faithfully then it’s hi-fi and unfortunately bad recordings are just painful to listen to.
Here tone controls are a blessing. Why they disappeared I wonder.
 
chartz said:
I want my recorded piano or acoustic guitar to sound exactly like the real thing.
My hi-fi has to be able to do that.
If not then it’s not hi-fi.
Trouble is, too many recordings are poorly recorded and can’t give this perfect illusion.
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How do you know it sounds exactly like the real thing, though? Given that different piano makers have different sounds, indeed two of the same model of piano from the same maker will not sound identical. So all you can say is ‘I want my hifi to depict what I imagine that piano sounds like’. So how do you compare two products? You’re essentially comparing two recreated experiences against your imagining of what the original sounded like. Better, surely, to ask ‘which one lets me enjoy the music more?’.
 
chartz said:
Sort of.
If speakers can reproduce acoustic instruments faithfully then it’s hi-fi and unfortunately bad recordings are just painful to listen to.
Here tone controls are a blessing. Why they disappeared I wonder.
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Well perhaps because if you demand ultimate accuracy from the product, it is illogical to also require an ability to depart from that accuracy? I do sometimes think the demand for total fidelity may be a touch inconsistent with the use of tone controls or EQ.
 
chartz said:
I want my recorded piano or acoustic guitar to sound exactly like the real thing.
My hi-fi has to be able to do that.
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Your hi-fi, like everyone else’s, is simply not accurate enough to do that. The basic issue, and why these discussions go around in endless loops, is that loudspeaker technology is still primitive and involves multiple drivers, phase error, timing error, port resonance, cabinet resonance, and is exceptionally lucky to get within +/-15-20db of flat between 20Hz and 20kHz. That is before we even think about dynamic compression, distortion etc. Even the most blinkered evangelists here blindly burping up things they read on sites such as ASR etc still have loudspeaker systems that are, to put it bluntly, crap in any absolute terms, and can almost certainly be beaten technically by a £150 pair of headphones. To be honest unless a person is running ESL63s their system is a joke in most respects, as that is one of very few speakers on the planet to this day that actually passes the full-range time-aligned point-source requirement and does so without any box colouration or port noise (but sadly it does so with obviously compromised dynamics and limited headroom).

The simple reality is home audio is compromised regardless of whether you are happily listening to a pair of LS3/5As in the nearfield or Michael Fremer’s luxury house-priced system. They each have obvious and measurable flaws. This means we are now in the realm of personal preference as to which flaws are we each able to turn a blind ear to. This is the fundamental audio truth until there is a really huge leap in loudspeaker technology (i.e. something entirely different from moving coil or electrostatic drivers, let alone anything in a tuned box). We are where we are.
 
Tony L said:
[…]To be honest unless a person is running ESL63s their system is a joke in most respects, as that is one of very few speakers on the planet to this day that actually passes the full-range time-aligned point-source requirement and does so without any box colouration or port noise (but sadly it does so with obviously compromised dynamics and limited headroom).

The simple reality is home audio is compromised regardless of whether you are happily listening to a pair of LS3/5As in the nearfield or Michael Fremer’s luxury house-priced system. They each have obvious and measurable flaws.
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I might add that compromised dynamics are as much of an audible distortion as any manner of IMD or THD, and just as detrimental to the musical art form, but I’m not aware of any measurement of that parameter.

Similarly, if the limited headroom means you can’t recreate the scale of the performance that is on the recording, in your domestic setting, to your satisfaction, then that’s as fundamental a flaw as any wobbly FR curve or dodgy phase response.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
How do you know it sounds exactly like the real thing, though? Given that different piano makers have different sounds, indeed two of the same model of piano from the same maker will not sound identical. So all you can say is ‘I want my hifi to depict what I imagine that piano sounds like’. So how do you compare two products? You’re essentially comparing two recreated experiences against your imagining of what the original sounded like. Better, surely, to ask ‘which one lets me enjoy the music more?’.
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No, I was referring to my piano at home. My drumset, my guitar…
I want my speakers to reproduce them as faithfully as possible.
 
chartz said:
No, I was referring to my piano at home. My drumset, my guitar…
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I also play piano, so I’m sure you’ll have noticed that the sound as heard by the pianist is quite different to the sound the audience hears.

Also, I clearly don’t know what sort of piano you have, and you’re extremely fortunate if you have a 9’ Steinway or Fazioli (and if you do, my jealousy is boundless!). So I come back to my point which is that your idea of accuracy is only accuracy to your imagination as to the sound of the piano on the recording.
 
Octavian said:
Quite the contrary, I think. Artificial recordings created in the studio represent "the art of recorded music" even more than the typical classical recording aesthetic. That is the reason why accuracy must be the ultimate goal in domestic hifi. Sadly it usually is not. Part of the reason is the populist hifi propaganda from the 70s and 80s when tapping feet and bopping heads were supposed to be all that mattered.
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I know I shouldn’t lower myself to the bait…

It is for users to decide how hifi should sound for each of them individually, not for you to arrogantly assert what it “must” be. Still, bet you’re delighted, albeit for the wrong reasons, to have been quoted!
 
Yeah but Joe Jackson -Look Sharp from that period remains one of the best pop albums ever made.
And we had Ian Dury and the Blockheads as a back -up.
 
I think accuracy needs to be a goal of the designer and engineers who develop a hifi product. But it needn’t be the be-all-and-end-all for the purchaser, who may have other considerations to put into the mix - not least, perhaps, a difficult room, or other domestic factors which preclude optimisation. So a pragmatic designer will aim for accuracy, but also needs to ask themselves ‘how enjoyable and usable is my product?’. Absolutism and slavish devotion to accuracy at all costs is the preserve of the armchair pundit, IMHO.
 
chartz said:
I want my recorded piano or acoustic guitar to sound exactly like the real thing.
My hi-fi has to be able to do that.
If not then it’s not hi-fi.
Trouble is, too many recordings are poorly recorded and can’t give this perfect illusion.
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Good luck with that.

Is that Piano in Studio A, B, C... theatre A, B, C...home, large room, small room, lots of glass, little glass, lots of furniture, little furniture, sat on the Piano stool, 1m away, 3m away,12m away et al
 
jtgofish said:
Yeah but Joe Jackson -Look Sharp from that period remains one of the best pop albums ever made.
And we had Ian Dury and the Blockheads as a back -up.
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What was the one by Joe Jackson recorded in a real acoustic space? I have it on both LP and an early (not destroyed in the mastering) CD.

(Sound of leafing through the CD collection, Hmmm, What?... )

Found it! 'Body and Soul'.
 
RJohan said:
What was the one by Joe Jackson recorded in a real acoustic space? I have it on both LP and an early (not destroyed in the mastering) CD.

(Sound of leafing through the CD collection, Hmmm, What?... )

Found it! 'Body and Soul'.
Click to expand...

Big World
 
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