Internet Question

[Danidl]

Done it all, using BC1 monitors which I prefer for my listening, but have also tried very expensive active monitors.

Even gone as far as a Meridian digital processor to remove all the flags and extraneous data from the CD before D to A conversion to ensure the converter had the cleanest possible conditions.

The end result from CDs never approaches the reality of live music, in general it's an accentuated reality which is very false. It can be exciting, even exhilarating, but that can be very undesirable in classical music where it can destroy the mood intentions of the composer.

The blame isn't entirely that of the CD medium, as often as not it's the very precision of CD reproduction that exposes the spatial errors of the multi-track recording process.
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... Wow I knew that I was opening a can of worms. How logical is it to argue that imperfections in a storage and transmission medium yields a superior result than when the majority of these imperfections are removed?. If the words hi fidelity are to mean anything , then fidelity to the original performance is paramount. Peter Walker of QUAD made a statement a long time ago that an amplifier should be a piece of wire with gain. Nothing added nothing lost.

I am somewhat reminded of the letter of Paul , of .." looking through a glass darkly" , and suspect that prior conditioning and expectations are what drives that exclusive concept of musicality. .. if I hear a slight hum from a speaker , I am conditioned to think .". wow this is powerful. " I am not decrying your emotional response to the music or to the ritual of removing the record from its sleeve etc, that's your choice.

 

[flecc]

they dont make one that is loud enough lol

I'd guessed that!
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[soundwave]

i just need a force field generator to stop my hut falling to bits also the lcd tv and monitors cant hack it above 120db its like voltage going over the screen.

flat out they suck the air out ur lungs like siting in a bass bin pmsl

 

[Danidl]

The best quality music i ever heard played was on vinyl, full of life!!!!!. CD and digital is very clinical. Ask any true audiophile over say 40yrs of age and he / she will agree.

To qualify this and without being snobby, you have to have decent kit in the first place, an ALBA deck isn't going to do it.

I'm speaking as someone who now has spotify and sonos, but as i said i did this fore ease of use and my teenage girls nagging me. I did keep my linn, but the connection to sonos is pathetic.

I talk about wifi etc as it's well documented that wireless technology is a big investment for manufacturers and telecoms companies alike. Personally i'll be glad to see the back of cables.

I was talking to a guy in the states who is promoting speakers that can fit anywhere in your wall and you plaster over them. These are not speakers in the traditional sense, but he informs me the quality is up their with B&W, again wireless technology.

Finally, the wireless tech will take over, as we all know the more physical connections we have the more we degrade the signal i.e. whether speaker cable direct to speaker or degraded by speaker plugs attached to cable and then to speaker etc etc

... Every communication system has limitations, in analogue ones it is the noise floor, frequency and phase responses , interference from and into cables etc. In digital ones it is jitter, quantisation error and bit rate limitations. Provided interference is below a specific level, the digital systems are strongly immune to interference. This is true whether by wireless or wired transmission or optical.
Wireless and WiFi is wonderful where and when it works. Case in point I recently purchased in two separate transactions , and at low cost remainered wireless speakers . A Samsung M3 and a Panasonic All3. Both with WiFi , both similar to models in the Sonos range. The Samsung responds always to the app whereas it is very much a hit and miss with the Panasonic. Unfortunately because it is slightly nicer to listen to. Both in virtually the same location. With a cable the Panasonic works ...

 

[flecc]

or to the ritual of removing the record from its sleeve etc, that's your choice.

That's no part of it for me, I hate that part and the potential for snap, crackle and pop. It would be wonderful if CD only removed most of the imperfections, but unfortunately its very precision portrays the many failings of our recording methods.

As Soundwave commented above, even a high rate like 192kHz won't reproduce the live experience, but the sum of errors of analogue can get closer when all conditions are suitable. That's not easy to achieve though, as with any such overwhelmingly complex situation, experience can count more than science.
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[soundwave]

vinyl to most sounds warmer than digital and less harsh why when i recorded music i used valve comps to record through from a drum machine so say.

tho on the other hand with a live drium kit id also use valve comps as well just then you need the super hi end mics to record it and pre amps ect very expensive and the room needs to be proper set up as well acoustic wise.

if 1 thing in the recording chain is wrong ie a cable gets to close to a psu then all is lost, i had 1 ensoniq fx unit that drove me crackers as the interference from it was so high i had to either put it in a metal box or out side the room and it drove me crackers trying to find what was doing it.


laser turn table
http://elpj.com/

diy vinyl lath
http://www.proaudioeurope.com/used-vintage/mastering/neumann-vms70-cutting-lathe.html

 

[Danidl]

That's no part of it for me, I hate that part and the potential for snap, crackle and pop. It would be wonderful if CD only removed most of the imperfections, but unfortunately its very precision portrays the many failings of our recording methods.

As Soundwave commented above, even a high rate like 192kHz won't reproduce the live experience, but the sum of errors of analogue can get closer when all conditions are suitable. That's not easy to achieve though, as with any such overwhelmingly complex situation, experience can count more than science.
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... In some of my recent reading another culprit has been identified. .. the mixing desk engineer. The arguement is was that one of the limitations of vinyl is that low frequency high volume sounds have to be attenuated, as the excursions of the stylus will be excessive. The RIAA curve notwithstanding. With CD s the engineer was not constrained as all levels of loudness are just numbers and gave vent to their pent up desires and flood the record with enhanced loudness. If one has grown accustomed to a particular tonal range the other becomes hyper..

 

[soundwave]

when you cut a record you have a space limit as it has to be cut all in one line so if a track has a lot of low end bass in it the sapphire will cut wider grooves in the dub plate.

so to make it fit you have to compromise and get the grooves smaller and closer together to get it to all fit on one side and can be a right pita if you dont know what you are doing.

it looks easy but its not and if you fook that cutting head its 6-8k to fix one.

 

[Danidl]

vinyl to most sounds warmer than digital and less harsh why when i recorded music i used valve comps to record through from a drum machine so say.

tho on the other hand with a live drium kit id also use valve comps as well just then you need the super hi end mics to record it and pre amps ect very expensive and the room needs to be proper set up as well acoustic wise.

if 1 thing in the recording chain is wrong ie a cable gets to close to a psu then all is lost, i had 1 ensoniq fx unit that drove me crackers as the interference from it was so high i had to either put it in a metal box or out side the room and it drove me crackers trying to find what was doing it.


laser turn table
http://elpj.com/

diy vinyl lath
http://www.proaudioeurope.com/used-vintage/mastering/neumann-vms70-cutting-lathe.html

.. why should valves sound warmer ,? is it because you like their distortion?. Any amplifier should have no distortion.
As a recording engineer/ artist you have every right to use any instrument , technology to create the sound you want.That would include any distorting devices etc But once mastered, the creative part is done and any playback device should replicate exactly the sound field you created

 

[soundwave]

thats why in most studios you will see yamaha ns10 speakers there sole purpose is to check the mix on that the most will hear it as on there play back device.

thats why from any studio monitor you want a flat response as possible from them as not to colour the sound.

its like mixing on head phones then the next day play it back on speakers and think wtf went wrong there as now the bass is blowing the windows open.

 

[Danidl]

when you cut a record you have a space limit as it has to be cut all in one line so if a track has a lot of low end bass in it the sapphire will cut wider grooves in the dub plate.

so to make it fit you have to compromise and get the grooves smaller and closer together to get it to all fit on one side and can be a right pita if you dont know what you are doing.

it looks easy but its not and if you fook that cutting head its 6-8k to fix one.

... Exactly my point... Except for the "looks easy" bit where you have an experience I lack.

 

[soundwave]

its why it has to be mastered for the format you want it in you cant have a hi tempo dance track with base line in it flat out all the way at 200bpm to 0db as it wont fit.

if it goes over 0db and ur cutting a dub plate then big hole that can make and destroy the cutting head in the process.


those things new were 250.000

 

[soundwave]

not sure if you can see that but all the 3 vu meters have a max of 0db anything over that it will clip and distort.

if that happens i also have a red clip light on my monitors.

 

[flecc]

... In some of my recent reading another culprit has been identified. .. the mixing desk engineer.

Very true, and part of what I meant when mentioning the defects of our recording processes. There's a lot more to it though, multi-miking and multitrack recording are riddled with introduced errors that prevent a good simulation of a live music experience.

When discussing these matters a very large proportion of the population lack understanding, basically because the great majority only listen pop of one sort or another. Since that is almost invariably amplified they have little concept of live acoustic instrument sound and the effect of the spaces in which it's played.
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[soundwave]

0db limiters and loudness over what is real from the instrument i guess is what ur on about.

or mic up from a speaker from the performer with the instrument then being recorded and then 0db software limited for the complete mix at the end.

it never sounds the same as live at the time as the room its in will dictate what it sounds like anyway and any speakers you can buy dont have the freq range in that same environment.

take a gun and fire it off in ur room and record it, it will be never as loud being recorded with mics and then played back by monitors as the freq range is just not there.

 

[flecc]

.. why should valves sound warmer ,? is it because you like their distortion?. Any amplifier should have no distortion.

Valves favour the second harmonic and the following even harmonic bias of that smoother sound. That was what was behind the huge popularity of Marshall amps in the pop world for so many years.

Digital bias when it exists tends to odd harmonics and the comparative harshness. Both wrong, but some wrongs are more sonically acceptable than others.
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[soundwave]

the best of the best 16-20k if you want one

 

[flecc]

0db limiters and loudness over what is real from the instrument i guess is what ur on about.

Only in part, microphones cannot reproduce the spatial field of what ears hear, the latter through the shape of the external ear setting the spatial positions of instruments. Microphones are very crude in comparison.

Accuracy such as digital produces copies the inherent problems with less than satisfactory results.

Analogue disc and speaker inaccuracies can sum in the wrong or right direction, but when right simulate through the accumulated errors a spatial field. Of course that spatial field may not be faithful to the original, probably isn't, but if recognisably an authentic one can be satisfyingly "real".
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[Danidl]

Valves favour the second harmonic and the following even harmonic bias of that smoother sound. That was what was behind the huge popularity of Marshall amps in the pop world for so many years.

Digital bias when it exists tends to odd harmonics and the comparative harshness. Both wrong, but some wrongs are more sonically acceptable than others.
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... I am aware of the characteristic transfer curves for both valves bjts and FETs , but my point is that under no situation should the amplifier be getting into regions where this type of distortion, irrespective of the technology should occur. Whatever distortions and sound modifications that occur within the recording studio can be considered as part of the creative process, just as a Stradivarius instrument distorts sounds, but once outside of the studio, there should be no further distortions. Words like musicality, warm, hard edged, smooth, clinical are just other terms for distortion.
As part of an app called Readly i have access to a collection of magazines including an apparently prestigious USA one called stereophil which showcases absurdly priced kit ... it is amusing to read

 

[Steve A]

SW / Flecc, totally agree with your thought process and understanding. However, it is clear that Danidl his own thoughts, mostly being incorrect.

Anyone, who thinks valves don't add warmth and compares anything from Samsung in terms of audio quality etc, really!.

My experience of anything Samsung is somewhat tainted, having wasted money and thrown in the bin.

Anyway, i'm opting out, off to listen to Spotify. Arrgghhh, where are those Samsung speakers?