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Old hifi systems with great sounding drum kit cymbals

Is it? How do you measure how well a system conveys the passion in Aretha Franklin's voice?

I said earlier that systems are agnostic. They deal with electric or digital audio signals. They can't distinguish the sound of a jet plane from that of a dog barking.
Systems produce sound, they don't convey anything.

Different systems may trigger different emotional responses when reproducing the same music, but it's still because of differences in frequency response and dynamics and detail, all measureable. Even your response is measurebale to a certain point with fMRI.
 
How do you do that exactly?

One nowadays very common example is a speaker measurement using REW.
The software generates a digital audio signal (sweep) which is converted by the DAC, amplified and transduced by the speakers, then captured by a microphone and converted back into a digital audio signal which is then analysed across a wide array of parameters.
 
One nowadays very common example is a speaker measurement using REW.
The software generates a digital audio signal (sweep) which is converted by the DAC, amplified and transduced by the speakers, then captured by a microphone and converted back into a digital audio signal which is then analysed across a wide array of parameters.

Is this what you do at home?
 
Is this what you do at home?

I do it whenever I move my speakers in the room, move house or change speakers. I use the measurement to produce Parametric EQ filters which tame the room-induced peaks and make the frequency response at the listening spot resemble the audio signal a lot more.

Unsurprisingly it sounds better too.
 
You weren't there while the recording was mastered

The mastering engineer receives a master tape. He gives it a listen and then makes a few tweaks. If he isn't using accurate equipment this can have catastrophic results.

Imagine editing a photograph with photoshop using a colour TV set from the 80s vs a high accuracy flat display from 2021...
The old CRT TV will be more forgiving and maybe take us on a trip down memory lane. To some people it may even convey a bit more passion.
 
@tuga As long as your room isn't the same or your devices aren't the same as the ones used from the recording engineer your solution with a DSP and your speakers are as much as far from the original sound as everyone else's system. If you think yours is more accurate you are fooling yourself IMO.
 
The mastering engineer receives a master tape. He gives it a listen and then makes a few tweaks. If he isn't using accurate equipment this can have catastrophic results.
And who defines accurate equipment? What is accurate? ME Geithain? Adam Audio? Genelec? Tannoy? Dynaudio? KS Digital? PSI? Event? Quested? Mackie? M-Audio? Neumann/Klein + Hummel? Do they all sound the same?
 
And who defines accurate equipment? What is accurate? ME Geithain? Adam Audio? Genelec? Tannoy? Dynaudio? KS Digital? PSI? Event? Quested? Mackie? M-Audio? Neumann/Klein + Hummel? Do they all sound the same?

Measurements define accuracy.
But speakers are different because different topologies produce different results. I had mentioned that earlier in a reply to one of your posts:

The higher the level of accuracy/fidelity, the closer the output will be to the recording (also known as garbage in, garbage out). The one caveat is the dispersion characteristics of the speakers (when the audio signal becomes three-dimensional).
 
Measurements with microphones which alters the sound?;)
There is only one reference and that is what happened before the recording aka live music, everything else is artificial and therefore has no reference for accuracy. A linear frequency plot is only a linear frequency plot. You can say monitor x is as linear as monitor z but that's it and is absolutely meaningless. No speaker sounds like the other.
 
@tuga As long as your room isn't the same or your devices aren't the same as the ones used from the recording engineer your solution with a DSP and your speakers is as much as far from the original sound as everyone else system. If you think yours is more accurate you are fooling yourself IMO.

That is the logic of some ASR members.
But it is flawed.

For one because there is only an original sound when all instruments were playing together at the same time. That almost only happens with classical music.
Then you need to capture that original sound with a single pair of mics. That hardly ever happens nowadays (maybe 0.1% of recordings are made that way).
What is common is the stereo mix, a set of different captures which when combined results in the music.
So the original sound is, in reality, the master tape. But that master tape is then mastered to a final recording, to be issued on vinyl, CD or a file. And what does it consist of if not the audio signal? Accuracy to the recorded signal.

I would be fooling myself if I thought that there could be any other type of accuracy in audio.
 
Measurements with microphones which alters the sound?;)

Alter the sound? In what way? Microphones and mic preamps can be calibrated, just like monitors, to ensure accuracy:

How_To_Calibrate_Monitor_Before_After.jpg
 


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