Any Wilco fans out there?

[Phelonious Ponk]

Yes many have taken the position that analog at its best is better than digital at its best. They seemingly miss few opportunities to point that out. It is exactly my point. That is stated as an absolute. Your continued characterization of it as a mere preference is dismissive and an incorrect statement of the position.

I'm not stating their position, Greg, I'm stating mine. It is dismissive to disagree? What a sensitive world we have.

Saying I like or prefer analog over digital is a statement of preference. So if Myles says I like analog tape best, that is a matter of preference. If he says analog tape is best, that is an absolute to be argued against, if you disagree. Or even to require additional information if you are unpersuaded.

Then we agree, Greg. And when the analog fringe states it as an absolute, we do ask for additional information. What we get ranges from dismissive to use your word, to deeply condescending: You haven't heard good analog, you don't have the experience, your system isn't resolving enough to reveal what I hear, the numbers don't tell everything, the numbers don't tell anything, you don't listen to music; you listen to charts.... And now this new one: Everything hasn't been measured, therefore measurements are no longer allowed in the debate. That one's interesting.

Step away from the subject we're all invested in for a moment, Greg, and look at this thing broadly: You have two eye witnesses to an event. They completely disagree regarding what happened. One has what he thinks he saw and an overwhelming confidence that he is absolutely right. He insists that there is no error or misunderstanding or matter of opinion. The other has what he saw and every bit of the substantial available evidence on his side. And he is willing to call it a day and a difference of opinion. But the first guy not only won't let go, he has to question the eyesight, the experience and the credibility of the other guy and insist that all the evidence is meaningless.

Do you listen to Wilco?

Tim

 

[mep]

And, Mark, compressed pop records notwithstanding, there's nothing theoretical about digital's dynamic range.

Tim

Tim-this really needs to go to another thread because we have hijacked your Wilco thread. However, we need someone like Bruce to drop in and tell us what is the average dynamic range he is recording today for all types of music and what is the maximum dynamic range he is recording. I think in many cases, you are lucky to have 30dB of dynamic range. Classical music has arguably the most dynamic range of music being recorded. If the average level of classical music is around 70dB and the peaks hit around 101dB, that's a whopping 31dB of dynamic range (which actually sounds pretty damn good).

Outside of gunshots and train wrecks, I just don't think we have anything being recorded today that is taxing the limit of the dynamic range capability of digital. We are however certainly taxing the maxium level that digital can record.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Outside of gunshots and train wrecks, I just don't think we have anything being recorded today that is taxing the limit of the dynamic range capability of digital.

I think you're right. That doesn't make it theoretical. It may even be that there are precious few recordings out there that exceed the dynamic capabilities of vinyl. That doesn't make it accurate when a vinylphile comes along and claims that he "hears" better dynamics on vinyl than he does on CD. I have plenty of digital with good dynamic range, and I have very little classical.

Tim

 

[mep]

And now this new one: Everything hasn't been measured, therefore measurements are no longer allowed in the debate. That one's interesting.

You are twisting what I said Tim. I never said measurements aren’t allowed in the debate. I asked you where your measurements are because you probably really don’t have any. You might have a specification sheet from the OEM. People love to talk about measurements like they have them stuffed in their back pocket and they can show them to you and discuss them. It’s just not true for the most part. We are all at the mercy of the few magazines that review gear and take measurements. If a piece of gear doesn’t get reviewed by one of the magazines that take measurements, you have no measurements to talk about.

 

[mep]

I think you're right. That doesn't make it theoretical. It may even be that there are precious few recordings out there that exceed the dynamic capabilities of vinyl. That doesn't make it accurate when a vinylphile comes along and claims that he "hears" better dynamics on vinyl than he does on CD. I have plenty of digital with good dynamic range, and I have very little classical.

Tim

It does make it right if the LP was mastered with higher dynamic range than the CD was which is certainly been happening for years now with lots of music. And my guess is that there are precious few recordings being made that would exceed the dynamic range capability of analog.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

You are twisting what I said Tim. I never said measurements aren’t allowed in the debate. I asked you where your measurements are because you probably really don’t have any. You might have a specification sheet from the OEM. People love to talk about measurements like they have them stuffed in their back pocket and they can show them to you and discuss them. It’s just not true for the most part. We are all at the mercy of the few magazines that review gear and take measurements. If a piece of gear doesn’t get reviewed by one of the magazines that take measurements, you have no measurements to talk about.

My point, Mark, is that these debates are seldom over individual pieces of gear in search of comprehensive measurement to inform the debate. It's pretty rare that someone jumps into a member's joy over a new purchase to rain on their parade and say "it doesn't sound that good, prove it." I'm sure it has happened, but I really can't think of an example. If you change a few caps and suddenly hear the heavens open, I may doubt that, but neither of us have those measurements. The larger, on-going debate, though, is between technologies, and it begins when someone stops talking about the specific component and gets into how much better their choice is than the entire category it doesn't fit into, and let's not beat around the bush, it is analog vs. digital, tubes vs. solid state. And there are plenty of numbers to inform that debate.

Refresh my memory - when did you ask me for what measurements and why?

Tim

 

[Steve williams]

Any Wilco fans out there

 

[Gregadd]

I'm not stating their position, Greg, I'm stating mine. It is dismissive to disagree? What a sensitive world we have.



Then we agree, Greg. And when the analog fringe states it as an absolute, we do ask for additional information. What we get ranges from dismissive to use your word, to deeply condescending: You haven't heard good analog, you don't have the experience, your system isn't resolving enough to reveal what I hear, the numbers don't tell everything, the numbers don't tell anything, you don't listen to music; you listen to charts.... And now this new one: Everything hasn't been measured, therefore measurements are no longer allowed in the debate. That one's interesting.

Step away from the subject we're all invested in for a moment, Greg, and look at this thing broadly: You have two eye witnesses to an event. They completely disagree regarding what happened. One has what he thinks he saw and an overwhelming confidence that he is absolutely right. He insists that there is no error or misunderstanding or matter of opinion. The other has what he saw and every bit of the substantial available evidence on his side. And he is willing to call it a day and a difference of opinion. But the first guy not only won't let go, he has to question the eyesight, the experience and the credibility of the other guy and insist that all the evidence is meaningless.

Do you listen to Wilco?

Tim

Tim they take your arguments substantively. To my knowledge I don't recall anyone dismissing your argument as just your preference. Certainly you do have preferences as that is your perrogative.

And yes I am seriously off topic.

 

[Gregadd]

"Step away from the subject we're all invested in for a moment, Greg, and look at this thing broadly: You have two eye witnesses to an event. They completely disagree regarding what happened. One has what he thinks he saw and an overwhelming confidence that he is absolutely right. He insists that there is no error or misunderstanding or matter of opinion. The other has what he saw and every bit of the substantial available evidence on his side. And he is willing to call it a day and a difference of opinion. But the first guy not only won't let go, he has to question the eyesight, the experience and the credibility of the other guy and insist that all the evidence is meaningless. "

Exactly what I face in almost every trial. I win a lot.Smile

 

[mep]

Tim-If you want to boil everything down to tube vs. SS and analog vs. digital, we can restart that food fight I guess. And this is where you whip out the *measurements* to prove that digital is better than analog and SS is better than tubes. And those *measurements* need to be closely examined for the correlation to what we hear.

Let’s take SNR. Both digital and SS components have a higher SNR than analog or tubes. The question is does the SNR of analog and tube gear suffer enough in comparison to digital and SS that by that criteria alone you would make a decision on ultimate sound quality? I would say no because if that is your ace in the hole, you still may only be holding a pair of deuces. SNR is just one of many specifications that contribute to the sound we hear. We all probably share one thing in common though, we all want the SNR to be high.

Dynamic Range-16 bit digital has a theoretical dynamic range of 96dB. Some people who profess their love for measurements (when most of the time they are really talking about specifications) actually might think that because digital has the theoretical ability to have 96dB of dynamic range, that measurement/specification in and of itself makes digital superior to analog. Some may even be delusional enough to think that the 96dB of dynamic range is being regularly exercised by the music they play and they are hearing it every time they play a digital file. The reality is that we don’t normally come close to using that type of dynamic range during the recording process and what you end up with after the recording has been mastered. Having a theoretical advantage is not the same as having real-world practical advantage. When or if we ever get to the point that recordings are pushing greater than 60dB of dynamic range on a regular basis, the discussion of the superiority of digital’s dynamic range will actually have some meaning. For the here and now, it’s pretty much just a red-herring.

Channel separation-Another area where the measurements/specifications tells us that digital is far superior to analog. But what people leave out of this discussion is how many dB of separation do you need in order to not hear one channel bleeding over into the other and after you have reached that point, aren’t we just gilding the lily? And like I said yesterday, never once in my life do I remember listening to a piece of gear and saying to myself, “I wish I had more channel separation.” I think it’s another red-herring argument that people who love measurements love to trot out without thinking through what it really means in context to what they are hearing.

I’m not going to go into the tube vs. SS thing. Once you get tube people past the common mantra that tubes sound better than SS, the unity of the tube gang quickly breaks down among the warring factions. We have triodes against pentodes, single-ended vs. push-pull, DHT vs. all other tube types. It’s as bad or worse than all of the world’s religions that think theirs is the “one and true” religion. No one can argue that the measurements for SS will always trump the measurements for anything made with tubes. I do believe that tube preamps can be as quiet sounding (almost anyway) as a SS preamp. But I don’t believe they stay that way over time as the tubes age or just quickly go noisy. There should also be little debate that SS amps are better equipped by design to climb into the ring with speaker impedance dips and swings and clobber them into submission. There should also be little debate that SS bass pretty much whoops tube bass. What we will never agree to is which ones sounds more like real music.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim-If you want to boil everything down to tube vs. SS and analog vs. digital, we can restart that food fight I guess.

I don't. And if you had been paying any attention to what I said in the last couple of posts, you'd know that. So let's get back to your point, if I understand it: Manufacturers come out with new products all the time. They're better than the old products, yet they don't measure better...no wait a minute, that really wasn't it because you said we really didn't have the measurements...we just have specifications, which are goals, not measurements...but still, the new stuff is better, or they wouldn't release new stuff, even though the goals are not better, because, well, the specifications, which are goals, not measurements, aren't better, so while the newer stuff must be better ('cause it's newer?), the specs, which aren't measurements, are not better, therefore the measurements we don't have don't mean anything anyway?

You like Wilco?

Tim

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Any Wilco fans out there

LOL! ....damn, we need more smilies Steve!

Speaking of the T.A.V.E. Show in Toronto that I attended yesterday, here's a pic of me with Jacques Riendeau and Stephane Nadeau...co-partners of Oracle Audio. Very, very approachable and genuinely personable. Jacques talked to me a bit about the technology that was ported over into their new Paris MkV TT from the Delphi (this of course went right over my technophobe head), but I put on my best face and managed to convey my knowledge on the matter, without even a blink.



PS: I asked them about Wilco, but I got a blank stare!

 

[mep]

So let's get back to your point, if I understand it: Manufacturers come out with new products all the time. They're better than the old products, yet they don't measure better...no wait a minute, that really wasn't it because you said we really didn't have the measurements...we just have specifications, which are goals, not measurements...

All of the above statements are true even though you tried to string them together to make them (and me) appear to be nonsensical. Let’s rephrase it a little different though. Manufacturers do come out with new products all the time. They do claim their new models are better than the model they replaced. And I really don’t know if they measure any better because we probably won’t have any measurements to look at anyway (does anyone have a full set of measurements we can look at to compare the REF-3 to the REF-5 for example?). And yes, we will have a couple of spec sheets from the manufacturer that we could compare. And yes, if those specifications haven’t been verified by independent measurements, they really are nothing more than design goals. And most importantly, even if we really did have a full set of measurements to compare two products against, which measurements would you look at to give you a clue as to which component sounds better?

I stand by everything I said Tim. We can go through the same exercise using products from two different manufacturers as well.

And how about that Wilco?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

All of the above statements are true even though you tried to string them together to make them (and me) appear to be nonsensical. Let’s rephrase it a little different though. Manufacturers do come out with new products all the time. They do claim their new models are better than the model they replaced. And I really don’t know if they measure any better because we probably won’t have any measurements to look at anyway (does anyone have a full set of measurements we can look at to compare the REF-3 to the REF-5 for example?). And yes, we will have a couple of spec sheets from the manufacturer that we could compare. And yes, if those specifications haven’t been verified by independent measurements, they really are nothing more than design goals. And most importantly, even if we really did have a full set of measurements to compare two products against, which measurements would you look at to give you a clue as to which component sounds better?

I stand by everything I said Tim. We can go through the same exercise using products from two different manufacturers as well.

And how about that Wilco?

It really doesn't make a lot of sense to me, Mark, so I didn't have to try. It just came naturally. Funny thing about Wilco? The first album of theirs I got was AM - very alt country and none of the rest of their stuff is. The second one I got was Sky Blue Sky. I thought it was terrific. I later found out it is considered to be one of their weaker efforts. Who knew? I just listened to it.



Tim

 

[mep]

It really doesn't make a lot of sense to me, Mark, so I didn't have to try. It just came naturally.

Tim

Nothing I said was contradictory and it makes perfect sense if you read it and follow the logic.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

If this were me...I'd lock this thread down. Come on guys...take it somewhere else.

 

[mep]

Over and out John. How about that Wilco?

 

[Randall Smith]

Great live band, very talented musicians, but their music hasn't been as good since Jay Bennett was with the band.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Over and out John. How about that Wilco?

I still need to break the seal on it. Seriously though, I do like them. Maybe not something I'd play everyday or regularly, but I think they are quite talented and when I do hear them it's most enjoyable to me. There's a lot of fluff out there and I think these guys are a nice breath of fresh air.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

An interesting band, for sure. The turn from the alt-country of Uncle Tupelo and early Wilco to what they are is so radical they almost must have grown their own audience.

Tim