Audio Science: Does it explain everything about how something sounds?

[Groucho]

How can anyone know that the possibly-real phenomena that they are perceiving are due to what they think they are due to? Can any of us be sure that we would never mistake a characteristic of the speaker for a characteristic of the source, for example? Deep bass can play havoc with a bass reflex woofer (doubling up as mid range driver in a two-way speaker). Digital audio might include deep bass, while vinyl wouldn't. The listener concludes that digital sounds harsh or distorted compared to vinyl, but in reality this was just an artefact of a particular design decision in the speaker world. People make pronouncements like this all the time, I think, applying the wrong 'narrative' to what they are hearing.

Wikipedia on bass reflex speakers:

...at frequencies below 'tuning', the port unloads the cone and allows it to move much as if the speaker were not in an enclosure at all. This means the speaker can be driven past safe mechanical limits at frequencies below the tuning frequency with much less power than in an equivalently sized sealed enclosure. For this reason, high-powered systems using a bass reflex design are often protected by a filter that removes signals below a certain frequency. Unfortunately, electrical filtering adds further frequency-dependent group delay. Even if such filtering can be adjusted not to remove musical content, it may interfere with sonic information connected with the size and ambiance of the recording venue, information which often exists in the low bass spectrum.

 

[jkeny]

How can anyone know that the possibly-real phenomena that they are perceiving are due to what they think they are due to? Can any of us be sure that we would never mistake a characteristic of the speaker for a characteristic of the source, for example? Deep bass can play havoc with a bass reflex woofer (doubling up as mid range driver in a two-way speaker). Digital audio might include deep bass, while vinyl wouldn't. The listener concludes that digital sounds harsh or distorted compared to vinyl, but in reality this was just an artefact of a particular design decision in the speaker world. People make pronouncements like this all the time, I think, applying the wrong 'narrative' to what they are hearing.

Wikipedia on bass reflex speakers:

By listening over time to our systems we perceive the non-varying attributes of the sound & deduce that it is part of our playback system rather than the source

 

[jkeny]

Marc Hi, I am not denying change ,or that change can be beneficial, the EQ that Christof Faller set for me from my measurements has dramatically improved the sound of my big system, to a degree I didn't think possible.
But if something has changed then it can be measured.
Keith.

That mantra is worn out Keith & you know the answer but I guess it won't stop you using these annoying sound bites.

 

[jkeny]

You imagine things change spontaneously for no reason?
Keith

Keith are you going to go into this for the umpteenth time only to return to the same mantra as if nothing had been discussed?

You either haven't read any of this thread & just butted in or you simply don't understand the arguments, in either case it's not worth wasting my time with you!

 

[853guy]

I have to say that in the over 5 years we have been here that post IMO is probably one of the wisest ones I've read. I laud you sir

Thanks, Steve.

Sometimes we experience things that defy the collected knowledge of previous experiences. We're left to ask ourselves whether we discount the newer experience and adhere to the old, or include the new into our experience, even if it's in contradiction to what we thought we previously knew.

And it was actually listening to a system not too dissimilar to ddk's that made me re-think a lot of old dogmatisms. (I was once a Naim owner, so dogmatism came easily to me). I knew that my active ATC's must be more accurate, surely, because all my collected empirically-based knowledge confirmed it. But the experience of listening to a system so at odds with what I believed to be correct made me realise just how narrow my thinking really was.

I'm not an expert at anything. In fact, I'm more of a failed-at-a-lot-of-things. But it's taught me to enjoy everything for what it is, without the need to make orange juice more like apple juice, red wine more like white wine, or gin more like vodka. There's lots to celebrate about digital and active speakers as much as there is thermionic devices powering single-speaker horns. Personally, I don't feel compelled to make vinyl more like digital, or vice versa. Vive la différence!

Inebriation (the state of which I'm less familiar with these days) is an experience worth having at least once. But getting drunk on a good Chablis isn't comparable to getting drunk on a thirty-four times distilled vodka.

Drunk is drunk, objectively measured by my blood alcohol content, but I can't pretend they're the same experience.

 

[microstrip]

(...) What's more objective than nature and natural? There are objective and scientific differences in the formats, why is one preference considered objective and the other subjective? Is it objective or subjective to praise digital by calling it analog like and dissing analog when it sounds digital? But that's not what's being discussed here, its the dismissal of the sophisticated human machine fully equipped and capable of analysis and drawing natural conclusions in favor of tools which I & others are objecting to. You have to accept that we have different motives and goals for engaging here, the forum is just a meeting place. "Natural" for me is the highest form of praise, truth to the recording, performance and music is naturally an extension of the adjective. It doesn't mean that its all good, bad is also Natural.
(...)

David,

Although I can easily accept that some people do not feel comfortable with the concept of natural - it comes very high on the scale of perception, and most of the time can collide with other assumptions we are not prepared to question or even reject, the word natural has been often used by professionals to describe microphone properties and sound taking. Microphones are selected and positioned to create an arrangement that sounds natural in a recording. What systems should do is just preserving this natural aspect of sound reproduction.

Isn't it curious that the word natural is widely used in microphone literature and many professionals selected tube microphones just for natural sounding voices?

 

[853guy]

The difference between you and me is that my preferences have evolved from “flat, smooth FR, low noise and low distortion are on first and dynamic range comes in next” to time, dynamics and frequency (a distant third) in that order. A component that makes Elvin Jones sound like Dave Weckl can’t be claimed to be “accurate” no matter how smooth the FR plot may be.

Actually, I should have clarified this to you, Tim.

You and I are both musicians. Here's why frequency response comes a distant last to me.

If we were to sit two pianists down at the same piano, say, a Steingraeber & Söhne 138, with the same piece of music, say Beethoven's Sonatas, the same recording chain and a metronome, would we be able to tell them apart?

Of course we would. But not because the timbre or pitch would be different. Essentially, the sound of the 138 is going to remain the constant, with almost no variation excepting temperature and humidity changes.

What will change, noticeably, are the variations of time and amplitude. Why? Because that's what separates us as musicians. Over time, we developed a style, for better or worse, that's now intrinsically linked to our technique and intention. Give us the same guitar and piece of music and we'll play it differently. We just will.

And it's those two things predominantly that separate great musicianship from just playing the notes. It's why we chase the same classical repertoire but different performers/conductors. The notes don't change, but the interpretation will. And the thing that we as musicians have the greatest control over and variation of is related mostly to time and amplitude. Yes, we can of course, alter tone. But even a vocalist double tracking a vocal line is never going to measure the same in terms of time and amplitude, even if they nail the notes and have perfect pitch. (I know, I've zoomed in on countless waveforms and they never measure up ever).

I wasn't at the session. So I have no idea of what the original acoustic sound was. Nor will I have any idea of the mics, mic pres, outboard, desk, and mastering chain. So trying to chase fidelity to that - when I have no idea of what it originally was - is redundant.

What I do know is that Gould doesn't play the same as Richter, who doesn't play the same as Gulda, who doesn't play the same as Kempff, or Horowitz, or Ashkenaz, or Goode, or Gilels. (I've omitted Barenboim, sorry). Tone? Piano, tuning, temperature, humidity, room, mic selection, mic placement, etc, etc - all too many variables on the day to take into account. Gosh, they might have even recorded onto tape. So for me, it's now those differences of time and amplitude, those musically meaningful differences that differentiates musicians and artists making art that most interest me in the playback of music.

 

[spiritofmusic]

I'm always reluctant to join in these conversations. One, because I don't have a physics or engineering background to make a fact based contribution, and two, because this just feeds Keith's mantra/borderline obsession that this hobby should revolve on objective grounds.
What are we to make on harmonic distortion from tube amps? They sound different because they measure different, and they sure measure worse than SS so they should sure sound worse. TT speed stability has to measure worse than cd, so analog reproduction has to sound worse than digital. Magicos and YGs are going to measure better than Cessaros, Krells measure better than Bakoons, so your portfolio Keith de facto must sound worse.
I believe there is any number of reasons why some gear sounds better/worse than others, but measured performance will not correlate.
If it did Keith, you would be all over the best measuring gear out there, Magico, Technics, Halcro, ATC, Cerwin Vega, 70s Yamaha receivers.
Keith, you would have had your time in the sun back in the 70s and 80s when Japanese mass market manufacturers satuarated their advertising w/vanishingly low figures of THD etc, claiming that these measurements proved their gear by definition sounded better than everything else out there.

 

[Rodney Gold]

Any change in sonics can be measured..but the thing is with hifi , it has to be measured as the listener, with 2 ears , eyes , nose , glasses whatever , percieves it at listening position
No instrument can measure a perception of what one hears and no one really knows what to measure either .. or how to do it .
Keith , your mantra is growing wearisome.. as a dealer , do you think its a good thing to alienate your potential customers this way?
Your epihany might not be theirs..best to cease thrusting yours down everyones throat under the guise of "science"

 

[Al M.]

I wasn't at the session. So I have no idea of what the original acoustic sound was. Nor will I have any idea of the mics, mic pres, outboard, desk, and mastering chain. So trying to chase fidelity to that - when I have no idea of what it originally was - is redundant.

Very true.

'Accuracy of reproduction' is a problematic idea. One can never know where the microphones were placed, which microphones were used (they all 'hear' differently) and which studio monitors were used for mixing, and where. It is well documented that the same monitor delivers very different frequency responses in different studios around the world. So how can you know if reproduction is 'accurate', in the sense of precisely reflecting what was actually heard at the event?

I very much prefer the concept of believability. There is a certain range of sound that can be judged believable, and that range can be wide yet always shows certain features that must be present in order to be experienced as realistic.

Related to this is what Peter A. said:

That is one way, Steve. The other way is to go and listen to real musicians playing unamplified instruments. That sounds natural. If a system makes one believe he is listening to musicians playing real instruments, then that system sounds natural. I don't see what there is to argue about.

 

[Al M.]

Keith , your mantra is growing wearisome.. as a dealer , do you think its a good thing to alienate your potential customers this way?

Good point. I would never buy anything from Keith if I were a potential customer.

 

[Rodney Gold]

The room is what scrambles all those nice "measurements" to a dogs breakfast and makes them totally meaningless.. you can have it overwhipped to stiff peaks by a bad room or more gently scrambled by a good room..

its still all based at listening position and my preferences..merely a tuning tool to get closer to what I think the music should sound like.

I have plenty respect for measurements and use em to further my quest of that eternal eagasm.. but they cant tell in any generic terms as what anything will sound like to anyone ..each situation is particular

 

[Al M.]

The room is what scrambles all those nice "measurements" to a dogs breakfast and makes them totally meaningless.. you can have it overwhipped to stiff peaks by a bad room or more gently scrambled by a good room..

Even just a carpet can make a considerable difference for tonal character and balance.

 

[Tony Lauck]

By listening over time to our systems we perceive the non-varying attributes of the sound & deduce that it is part of our playback system rather than the source

This will be the case only if we have a suitable collection of recordings. If there is systematic bias in our selection of recordings, one may reach a different conclusion than someone else with a different collection. Also, one needs to know how the recordings are "supposed" to sound. This is just about impossible with processed studio recordings, or even acoustic music if one hasn't extensive experience with live acoustic music in a variety of venues.

 

[steve williams]

Where I find this argument so utterly amazing is that Tim with his preconceived notions as to what the system will sound like and/or Keith who labors so intensely with his measurements necessity has no idea what David's room sounds like. What a pity that such narrow and closed mindedness would IMO rob them both of the sheer beauty of listening to David's system. As David said no one is making them do it but the bridge is there. It would seem that based on our recent poll that both ONLY based their decisions on measurements and the science. That's OK I guess but what a pity that IMO one of the world's best systems would go unlistened to because of preconceived notions and/or measurements not being done. This for me is truly having one's head in the sand and does nothing except to have them argue about the sound which they have never heard. I have heard it but color me stupid as I thought it was the greatest sound system that I have ever heard. Too bad that their belief systems are so great that it precludes them from just listening to the music. And for Keith to suggest the music is colored without listening is also bothersome as it is so far from the truth. I would also say that neither Tim or Keith have any experience in the set up of such speakers. The pilgrimage is worth taking. David can teach you what the sound of "natural" is all about.

 

[PeterA]

Thanks, Steve.

Sometimes we experience things that defy the collected knowledge of previous experiences. We're left to ask ourselves whether we discount the newer experience and adhere to the old, or include the new into our experience, even if it's in contradiction to what we thought we previously knew.

And it was actually listening to a system not too dissimilar to ddk's that made me re-think a lot of old dogmatisms. (I was once a Naim owner, so dogmatism came easily to me). I knew that my active ATC's must be more accurate, surely, because all my collected empirically-based knowledge confirmed it. But the experience of listening to a system so at odds with what I believed to be correct made me realise just how narrow my thinking really was.

I'm not an expert at anything. In fact, I'm more of a failed-at-a-lot-of-things. But it's taught me to enjoy everything for what it is, without the need to make orange juice more like apple juice, red wine more like white wine, or gin more like vodka. There's lots to celebrate about digital and active speakers as much as there is thermionic devices powering single-speaker horns. Personally, I don't feel compelled to make vinyl more like digital, or vice versa. Vive la différence!

Inebriation (the state of which I'm less familiar with these days) is an experience worth having at least once. But getting drunk on a good Chablis isn't comparable to getting drunk on a thirty-four times distilled vodka.

Drunk is drunk, objectively measured by my blood alcohol content, but I can't pretend they're the same experience.

853guy, I love reading your posts, they are refreshing, informative, and funny and they make a great deal of sense. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

 

[andromedaaudio]

What i find irritating in these audiositedebates ,is that most things are presented as extremes , take for example the tittle of this thread :" Does it explain everything about how something sounds "
Everybody with an IQ above 100 knows it doesnt , big deal .
What some soundextremists forget is that the holy grail of audio recording is still an analogue tapemachine , from which a lot of the best recordings are taken from ,and is designed to have an optimal freq response (same goes for digital ), same goes for amps , but somehow a lot are not eager to measure their system LS FR wise in room , its one of the basic requirements to have accurate sound in a system ,however it doesnt explain if the system sounds natural or not

 

[Atmasphere]

So actually you agree. Difficult to measure or not being measured is not saying something can't be measured.

Can't and don't are pretty different. Right now the tools don't seem to exist for the measurements I'd like to make... and that would be what sort of distortions show up when the waveform is in constant change (such as a musical signal) as opposed to a sine or square wave. As far as I know that technology does not exist. Yet that would tell us a lot more than we get right now!

 

[steve williams]

What i find irritating in these audiositedebates ,is that most things are presented as extremes , take for example the tittle of this thread :" Does it explain everything about how something sounds "
Everybody with an IQ above 100 knows it doesnt , big deal .
What some soundextremists forget is that the holy grail of audio recording is still an analogue tapemachine , from which a lot of the best recordings are taken from ,and is designed to have an optimal freq response (same goes for digital ), same goes for amps , but somehow a lot are eager to measure their system LS FR wise in room , its one of the basic requirements to have accurate sound in a system ,however it doesnt explain if the system sounds natural or not

I do agree however I found that when David played the Hindemuth by Oistrakh on his TechDasAF1 it was gorgeous but yet still did not convey what I hear or my emotions sense however when he played the same record on The American Beauty I can tell you that it was darn close to the aural sensations i feel when I play the tape of that album. Nothing else came remotely close

BTW as a reply to an earlier comment that Christian made about the Duralumin vs Stainless steel platters for the TechDas, we did manage to play several songs on the stainless steel platter which David used as his go to platter. Then we switched to the Duralumin platter and listened to the same songs and both of us instantly agreed that the Duralumin had a much better sound, so much so that David left the Duralumin platter on

 

[PeterA]

What i find irritating in these audiositedebates ,is that most things are presented as extremes , take for example the tittle of this thread :" Does it explain everything about how something sounds "
Everybody with an IQ above 100 knows it doesnt , big deal .
What some soundextremists forget is that the holy grail of audio recording is still an analogue tapemachine , from which a lot of the best recordings are taken from ,and is designed to have an optimal freq response (same goes for digital ), same goes for amps , but somehow a lot are eager to measure their system LS FR wise in room , its one of the basic requirements to have accurate sound in a system ,however it doesnt explain if the system sounds natural or not

Andro, I agree with you. Amir, imo, presented an extreme position about audio science in reaction to one of my posts. The title of the tread is a direct response to Amir's assertion. Why I started the thread should be clear in the text of my original post.

I don't know how big a deal it is, but there still seem to be a few members who assert that audio science can explain everything about how something sounds. Surely they don't have such a low IQ.

Before starting this thread, I asked the question because I wanted to read what people thought. And there continues to be a rather lively discussion on this topic, about which I continue to learn.

And there is that word "natural" again.