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Old hifi systems with great sounding drum kit cymbals

@tuga: You didn't understand what I meant. EVERY speaker or should I say hifi component is a compromise. There is no true fidelity because it can't be. The reason: The laws of physic.
 
@tuga: You didn't understand what I meant. EVERY speaker or should I say hifi component is a compromise. There is no true fidelity because it can't be. The reason: The laws of physic.

I agree that we cannot speak of absolute fidelity for any hi-fi equipment. Even the higher-fidelity equipment may not be the best performing in all measured parameters.
But that in my view is no excuse for relativisation. Some topologies have higher performance potential than others, just as some types of support have higher performance potential than others.

Higher performance potential does not mean that for eample any 3-way box speaker will perform better than any 2-way box speaker because there's design and implementation to take into account.


It all starts with the recording, or master tape, which is prepared/mastered for a given support or commercial release. This will set the reference and from then onwards there is an accumulation of different types of distortion which culminates with the room interference. If the recording is not good then there is no way a system can improve it. But some types of distortion may, at least to some people, enhance the listening experience from a perceptual or subjective point of view. That's where taste kicks in.

So even though I agree that every hi-fi equipment or system is a compromise, some are more compromised than others. It is, logically, for the end user to decided what he prefers, but that does not invalidate the fact that some are higher-fi than others from an accuracy or technical performance perspective.
 
Who defines accuracy?
Studio:
The Monitor used for the recording has a more or less flat frequency response.
How do you know that the position of the studio monitor interacting with the studio room doesn't cause a dip of 6dB (not uncommon as I was told by an acoustic engineer of GIK) in the frequency response?
If so how do you know that the recording engineer considered it while he was doing the mix or that he doesn't considered it and therefore maybe boosted the bass about 6dB.

Home:
Let's say we have a speaker with a slightly bass bump of 3dB @ 80Hz.
The position of the speaker in the listening room is causes a bass dip around 6dB @ 80 Hz.
The sounded/non flat speaker therefore will sound more accurate than the linear speaker used in the studio.

Then there is the listening volume.
The recording engineer mixed the record at 90db, but at home I didn't want to listen that loud, but I want the same sound as the recording engineer.
Now I have to boost the bass and the high frequencies because the hearing curve is not linear.

Also the recording engineer can have a totally different hearing curve than I have, how do I know how to achieve the same experience in sound as the recording engineer have had at his recording desktop?

How do I know which equipment the recoding engineer has used?

Do I have to switch between the different monitors of different studios?

How about the difference between the near field monitors and main monitors of the same studio?

Therefore accuracy is totally nuts IMO.

You can buy equipment you like and listen with it. That's it!
 
How do I know which equipment the recoding engineer has used?

Do I have to switch between the different monitors of different studios?

How about the difference between the near field monitors and main monitors of the same studio?

The only possible accuracy is to the signal. If I email you a JPEG of a photo I took of Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", that is a recording. You cannot make a reproduction of that recording look like the original, even if you've seen it, but you can reproduce it with as little distortion as possible whether by viewing it on a wide-gamut calibrated display or printing it with a calibrated inkjet printer in high quality photo paper.
High fidelity reproduction of recorded music.

Replicating what the engineers were hearing in the studio is a silly goal, though one that's often bandied around at ASR.
 
All of them. That's all we have to start with.
But I accept that accuracy is not for everyone..

And how do you know that your reproduced sound is accurate? What is your reference?

But my point was, accurate to what which aspects of the recording? Typically when asked about accuracy of HiFi people talk about lack of distortion, detail, and other technical parameters. I would argue that what matters is capturing the spirit of the performance. The joy, anger or passion. The ability of a system to move us emotionally. Isn't that the reason for the recording and the thing the artists will care about most?

So if a system is coloured, does not have the best channel separation but really draws you into, makes your feet tap and makes you live the music isn't that system more accurate than a technically more accomplished one which is not as involving?
 
And how do you know that your reproduced sound is accurate? What is your reference?

Accuracy is measureable. You can use higher-fidelity equipment as a reference and also recordings engineered to sound natural, though the latter are not as effective.

But my point was, accurate to what which aspects of the recording? Typically when asked about accuracy of HiFi people talk about lack of distortion, detail, and other technical parameters. I would argue that what matters is capturing the spirit of the performance. The joy, anger or passion. The ability of a system to move us emotionally. Isn't that the reason for the recording and the thing the artists will care about most?

Capturing (or recording) the spirit of the performance is done during the recording stage, not the reproduction stage.
But I accept that, with stereo being imperfect by nature, and accurate reproduction of a recording might not be as emotionally engaging as one that is tailored to the listener's preferred "presentation".

So if a system is coloured, does not have the best channel separation but really draws you into, makes your feet tap and makes you live the music isn't that system more accurate than a technically more accomplished one which is not as involving?

The answer to that question is that no two people are alike; what really draws you into, makes your feet tap and makes you live the music is likely not the same as what draws me in. I seem to prefer accuracy whilst you enjoy euphony.
I used to think that it was genre related, that people who listened predominantly to studio mixes (rock and pop) preferred euphonic systems and classical listeners went for accuracy; but I am no longer sure that is true. People like what they like. I have my Darjeeling with sugar but no milk.
 
I can enjoy music that makes my feet tap – say Beethoven piano pieces – from a kitchen radio. Music and hi-fi are different things.
Darjeeling and sugar, I like that. No milk.
 
@tuga But if the signal is altered by the room then there is no reference point and as long as you doesn't know how the sound was for the recording engineer and HIS ears it is totally a illusion to achieve accuracy IMO. Even writing about such things is a total waste of time.
 
Accuracy is measureable. You can use higher-fidelity equipment as a reference and also recordings engineered to sound natural, though the latter are not as effective.
Accuracy isn't measurable. How could it? Even a microphone alternates the sound/measurement process. There is no reference. You weren't there while the recording was mastered nor do you have the same ears as the recording engineer or the same equipment or the same room.
 
@tuga But if the signal is altered by the room then there is no reference point and as long as you doesn't know how the sound was for the recording engineer and HIS ears it is totally a illusion to achieve accuracy IMO. Even writing about such things is a total waste of time.

It is only a waste of time if you don't like the result. In fact, since it's inception sound reproduction has been striving for the higher accuracy from which the name high-fidelity has derived.

The signal stops being a signal once it's been transduced into the air. Yes, the room interferes with the soundwaves produced by the speakers but I can still control that to some extent, by controlling the directivity of the speakers, treating resonances and early reflection zones, EQ'ing room-induced peaks.

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You don’t need hi-fi for that. I can feel that in my car with its crappy stereo system. It’s the same as my hi-fi. Only the sound quality is not here. The soul of the music is the same.

Doesn't that pose more questions than it answers?
 
Accuracy isn't measurable. How could it? Even a microphone alternates the sound/measurement process. There is no reference.

You compare what goes in with what comes out. The reference is the signal. Simples.

You weren't there while the recording was mastered nor do you have the same ears as the recording engineer or the same equipment or the same room.

Forget the being there. Most music is created in a mixing desk. The engineer behind the knobs might not have been present when the recording sessions took place. Often musicians record their part by themselves listening on headphones, the guitar may have been recorded in one country and the drum kit in another...
 


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