Digital Props Part II

[Phelonious Ponk]

I am so tired of the nonsense and drivel. In the thousands of times you have been asked to explain exactly what you have done to elevate a HTIAB which was never designed to be anything close to what a good mid-fi system could deliver in order to achieve the laws of physics defying feats you claim to have achieved, you have never come close to telling us. Some of your answers started off with hardwiring the AC cord into the wall and soldering your speaker cables inside the receiver. After that, you clammed up and acted like you are sitting on some really great tweaks that you can't share because they might be bankable in the future. Some of us have asked you to take pictures of the inside of your HTIAB so we an see the havoc you have wreaked, but that's top secret too.

Don't you think it's a wee bit odd that you own a HTIAB and you are on a forum called "What's Best" and yet you make claims for the performance of your system that people who have systems well into the six-figure mark would never claim to have achieved?

I doubt it strikes him as strange at all, Mark. Frank is either fully aware of the nonsense he talks around here, and is enjoying playing with us, or he's just completely wacked. I only struggle with which is crazier - a guy with a cheap, low-fi system he believes is defying gravity because he closed some terminals with Tinkerbell's soldering iron and sat a block of concrete on top of his speakers? Or is it the guys with really expensive systems who will believe that their medium of preference is capturing more ambient information when there is absolutely no evidence of that, but refuse to acknowledge that it is actually adding ambient-like noise, which can actually be measured, displayed, confirmed and repeated.

The whole freakin' hobby is nuts. I think I'll go find a couple of good guitar forums where people actually use soldering irons, to install new pickups and switching systems, and know the difference between signal and noise when they're finished.

Or maybe I'll just have another drink.

Tim

 

[mep]

I only struggle with which is crazier - a guy with a cheap, low-fi system he believes is defying gravity because he closed some terminals with Tinkerbell's soldering iron and sat a block of concrete on top of his speakers? Or is it the guys with really expensive systems who will believe that their medium of preference is capturing more ambient information when there is absolutely no evidence of that, but refuse to acknowledge that it is actually adding ambient-like noise, which can actually be measured, displayed, confirmed and repeated.

I think it’s safe to say that the “medium of preference” is analog. Do you have any measurements that you can share with us which show how much ambient-like noise is being added by tape and vinyl?

 

[Bruce B]

Remember the conditions I set in the previous post. Just hooking up a bit of gear in a sloppy manner to record to tape is NOT going to work, I've said over and over again that digital is very sensitive to any interference, and unless you take extreme care doing the recording, it most certainly won't succeed. That's why the person who really, really makes an effort to do it properly will reap a rich reward ...

Of course most people won't believe me, the idea that you have to be fussy is too much to handle, which is why the industry is in such a mess trying to get audio to always sound right .

Frank

We've done this hundreds of times. Our power system IS divided between analog/digital and L/R. I've even remastered CD's to tape and it still doesn't come close to the original master tape.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I think it’s safe to say that the “medium of preference” is analog. Do you have any measurements that you can share with us which show how much ambient-like noise is being added by tape and vinyl?

Sure. look at the differences between digital and analog sources and what you'll find are the noises, distortions and limitations of analog. Are they ambient-like? Not to me. But a lot of audiophile mileage varies.

Tim

 

[RogerD]

I think it’s safe to say that the “medium of preference” is analog. Do you have any measurements that you can share with us which show how much ambient-like noise is being added by tape and vinyl?

We've done this hundreds of times. Our power system IS divided between analog/digital and L/R. I've even remastered CD's to tape and it still doesn't come close to the original master tape.

Sure. look at the differences between digital and analog sources and what you'll find are the noises, distortions and limitations of analog. Are they ambient-like? Not to me. But a lot of audiophile mileage varies.

Tim

Since I have been listening to my friend Charlie's CDs for the last 2 nights what tape noise there is on a few tracks,that does not detract from the ambient markers on the recordings. When I talk about these markers,to me they make difference between a stellar and a very good recording. Natural bloom of vocals and instruments, openness ,decay,natural reverberation,presence,and spaciousness come to mind. Great clarity comes a long as well but that to me is not a ambient marker. The degree of all this present just points to a exceptional analog system used in the recording. that just happens to make the digital copy that much better. Why is the Analog master that much better than the digital. I could be wrong here,but I would guess the digital envelope is cut off at the high frequency, but what about the whole frequency range?

 

[fas42]

The whole freakin' hobby is nuts. I think I'll go find a couple of good guitar forums where people actually use soldering irons, to install new pickups and switching systems, and know the difference between signal and noise when they're finished.

Or maybe I'll just have another drink.

Tim

Sounds good to me, I might join you with that drink, cheers!

Frank

 

[RBFC]

The whole freakin' hobby is nuts. I think I'll go find a couple of good guitar forums where people actually use soldering irons, to install new pickups and switching systems, and know the difference between signal and noise when they're finished.

Or maybe I'll just have another drink.

Tim

And many of those sane guitar players dream of what...? To record their music so that crazy audiophiles can perseverate over what type of solder they used on those new pickups!

The drink sounds like a good idea regardless.

Lee

 

[fas42]

I am so tired of the nonsense and drivel. In the thousands of times you have been asked to explain exactly what you have done to elevate a HTIAB which was never designed to be anything close to what a good mid-fi system could deliver in order to achieve the laws of physics defying feats you claim to have achieved, you have never come close to telling us. Some of your answers started off with hardwiring the AC cord into the wall and soldering your speaker cables inside the receiver. After that, you clammed up and acted like you are sitting on some really great tweaks that you can't share because they might be bankable in the future. Some of us have asked you to take pictures of the inside of your HTIAB so we an see the havoc you have wreaked, but that's top secret too.

Don't you think it's a wee bit odd that you own a HTIAB and you are on a forum called "What's Best" and yet you make claims for the performance of your system that people who have systems well into the six-figure mark would never claim to have achieved?

Sorry to bug you so much, Mark, but you might recall that when I first talked of aiming for getting better sound you were very enthusiastic, were very keen to discuss it. However, when I didn't regurgitate to the last morsel everything that I had done, that offended you, and you still haven't forgiven me. However, if you check out everything that I have said here you will find I have been extremely consistent.

One thing I emphasised at one point is that there is no magic bullet. You're not making a stew where everything you add enhances the flavour, and it gets better and better the more things you do. No, you start with the premise that the food has been perfectly prepared at some stage, but it still doesn't taste right, so there is something in there that shouldn't be there. So, the job is to find what is disturbing in your stew, not someone else's, yours. And it will be different things as compared to others. I've mentioned over and over again the things you need to take into consideration, but unless it has blessed by the appropriate audio guru it appears as if it has zero chance of having any value for yourself.

You are not very gracious in claiming that I have not offered explanations. There have been numerous occasions where I have offered advice, sometimes specifically to you, and you've chosen to ignore it, or ridicule it. You can lead a horse to water but ...

Yes, there are some things that are IP, and I'm not giving them away. But I've got a friend's system "punching way above its weight" as someone said, and that was doing no more than the things I have mentioned many times here. His biggest problem now is likely that he has not yet lifted the lid on the amp, he's lucky it's a good Naim, and he's got a long way towards the good stuff doing everything else.

As regards the 6 figure systems, that's irrelevant. This friend has an audiophile friend, whom I have never met, who has one of those mega expensive setups. And apparently it sounds very spectacular with the right, percussion laced, recording, he says. And what does it sound like with strings, say? "Well, umm, perhaps, could be better ...". I've had my ears assaulted with very expensive sound too many times to take much notice of that factor. The masthead of the forum is What's Best , not What's Expensive and SHOULD Be Impressive ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

We've done this hundreds of times. Our power system IS divided between analog/digital and L/R. I've even remastered CD's to tape and it still doesn't come close to the original master tape.

So you've had a tape, ran that through an ADC, burned that directly to CD, then ran the CD through a DAC to record to tape, for the moment say to a second R2R. Correct? If so, how did that tape compare to a tape created by copying from the first tape unit to the second R2R, an analogue copy in other words?

Frank

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

....

 

[mep]

I always love it when people explain away how good analog sounds by saying that it's due to the 5,299 distortions (or pick your own number, I lost count) that it adds to the sound that somehow all blend together in perfect harmony.

 

[LL21]

Stretching this technical accuracy vs inaccuracy but "feels like real music" bit...lets take a photo of someone we know extremely well (which somehow does not really look like them at all...bad angle, weird light, wrong expression...we've all seen this)...and compare it to a caricature which is EXACTLY that person and captures the mood, the personality, the expression. Clearly the photo is "real" and the caricature totally "wrong". Is that an extreme example of what happens when technical distortions are perceived as more "real" than perfectly measured performance?

I'm no techie...but just curious as to what others may think of an extreme analogy.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I always love it when people explain away how good analog sounds by saying that it's due to the 5,299 distortions (or pick your own number, I lost count) that it adds to the sound that somehow all blend together in perfect harmony.

I do think analog sounds good. But I think it sounds good in spite of its distortions, not better because of them. Big difference.

It's really just a handful of distortions we're talking about, but they're so deeply ingrained in analog recording, duplication and reproduction that they have become an inseparable part of what many perceive as quality audio reproduction. When they are missing, people miss them; it's really that simple. The elaborate imagining of detail and spaciousness that can be heard but not measured, the wide adoption of misrepresentations of the basics of digital audio, the invention and inappropriate appropriation of language (my current favorite is fillintheblank density) to present a preference, at best, as superior to that which is missing the comforting, familiar distortions...all of that is just rationalization. Grumpy old men, set in their ways, invested to their teeth in gilded carriages, standing by the road screaming "Get a horse!"

Tim

 

[MylesBAstor]

Frank,

You have that arse backwards.....the biggest difference I can tell between a digital master and a analog master is the amount of ambient information captured. Analog tape is the king at doing this and then some tape electronics are better than others. When digital has approached this key level then and only then will what you suggest be worth doing.

When and if digital has "ambience," it's usually added post production. Or ADD.

 

[MylesBAstor]

I doubt it strikes him as strange at all, Mark. Frank is either fully aware of the nonsense he talks around here, and is enjoying playing with us, or he's just completely wacked. I only struggle with which is crazier - a guy with a cheap, low-fi system he believes is defying gravity because he closed some terminals with Tinkerbell's soldering iron and sat a block of concrete on top of his speakers? Or is it the guys with really expensive systems who will believe that their medium of preference is capturing more ambient information when there is absolutely no evidence of that, but refuse to acknowledge that it is actually adding ambient-like noise, which can actually be measured, displayed, confirmed and repeated.

The whole freakin' hobby is nuts. I think I'll go find a couple of good guitar forums where people actually use soldering irons, to install new pickups and switching systems, and know the difference between signal and noise when they're finished.

Or maybe I'll just have another drink.

Tim

So Tim, you're telling us that guitarists don't modify their electronics. Do you know that Eric Clapton is a nut about the type of caps used in his electronics?

 

[MylesBAstor]

So you've had a tape, ran that through an ADC, burned that directly to CD, then ran the CD through a DAC to record to tape, for the moment say to a second R2R. Correct? If so, how did that tape compare to a tape created by copying from the first tape unit to the second R2R, an analogue copy in other words?

Frank

A lot better than the CD made from the original tape.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

So Tim, you're telling us that guitarists don't modify their electronics. Do you know that Eric Clapton is a nut about the type of caps used in his electronics?

No, I'm telling you that guitarists do modify their electronics, and that the results are tangible. I wouldn't call Clapton's awareness of the caps used in his guitars "nuts" I would call it an understanding of what a different value of capacitor in a passive tone circuit does to the tone of an instrument and the function of the controls and how that can be used to effect.

Now, if you're telling me that Clapton changes a good capacitor to a very expensive one of the same value and hears a palpable expansion of the sound stage of his Stratocaster, I'd tell you that evidently even old Slowhand can be a victim of expectation bias.

Tim

 

[microstrip]

(...) It's really just a handful of distortions we're talking about, but they're so deeply ingrained in analog recording, duplication and reproduction that they have become an inseparable part of what many perceive as quality audio reproduction. When they are missing, people miss them; it's really that simple. The elaborate imagining of detail and spaciousness that can be heard but not measured, the wide adoption of misrepresentations of the basics of digital audio, the invention and inappropriate appropriation of language (my current favorite is fillintheblank density) to present a preference, at best, as superior to that which is missing the comforting, familiar distortions...all of that is just rationalization. Grumpy old men, set in their ways, invested to their teeth in gilded carriages, standing by the road screaming "Get a horse!"

Tim

Tim,
Unhappily it is not as simple as that, as most of us do not share your views about the audiophile imagination of detail and spaciousness. And yes, the language is sometimes inappropriate because we can not find better ways to explain our perceptions.

IMHO, most of time the key issue should be related to the masking effect and perception - no recording system is completely free of distortions, and some of them do a better job masking the unnatural distortions that we perceive as disagreeable and spoil our listening pleasure.

BTW, when discussing digital people should refer to what type they are referring to : CD , some type of HiRez, DSD or 2x DSD.

 

[Old Listener]

I always love it when people explain away how good analog sounds

I don't think that Tim nor Tom said that analog sounded better than digital in general. They offered possible explanations for the general preference for analog playback that some other audiophiles express. Rather generous of them.

Distortions? I used reel-to-reel tape for some years and LPs for over 35 years. The everyday flaws of LP playback seemed very real to me.

I have almost all of my favorite recordings from LPs days on CD. I do not miss any of the LPs. Some of the recent remasterings of Szell/Cleveland Orchestra recordings are far better than the corresponding LPs were. That is mostly the result of careful work starting from the original session tapes. Of course, not having to tailor the sound to fit the limitations of LPs was an advantage.

Perfect harmony? Were you listening to Buddhist chants?

Bill

 

[mep]

Mark, try this idea.

Let's change up your statement with just one word (SET, that is a single ended triode amplifier, for the newbies),

So, explain away your technical reason why a couple of the most respected systems ,as heard by many on WBF, on this site uses highly euphonic SET amplification.

You certainly are not going to tell me it is accurate to the recording.....

I quote you with one word changed: I always love it when people explain away how good SET sounds by saying that it's due to the 5,299 distortions (or pick your own number, I lost count) that it adds to the sound that somehow all blend together in perfect harmony

It does add to the sound, the word we usually use to describe additions to the audio signal is distortion, and yes, they can and do make stuff "sound" better to many. It aint all that hard to understand IMO, but I come from the starting point that plain old stereo just struggles like hell to try to get us to some sort of an illusion (primarily imaging and depth), to start with.


Tom

I have never owned an SET amp so I can't really comment. I have never intentionally purchased any audio gear that I knew by its very design was incapable of high fidelity. But, don't you own an SET amp Tom that you listen to when you want to change gears from your Hafler SS amp?