Introspection and hyperbole control

[dallasjustice]

How does this one sound?

"As a proof of concept, I tested my ethernet router's power supply with the new mega-awesome power supply technology."

I just made that up. I totally understand that audio reviewers have a job to do. So they often come up with awkward descriptions which linger on the page. I don't understand why some audiophiles feel the need to copy the reviewer's writing style. Folks should drop a laconic line and leave it at that. To me, the more fancy the verbiage, the less the writer is certain of which he writes.

 

[PeterA]

Hyperbole relief would be good. Better still would be a change in terminology. No need to join the science of audio forum, but if audiophiles would just describe what they hear in clear, defined terms -- a slight roll-off of upper trebles, lower noise floor leading to better dynamics, etc., that alone would temper hyperbolic language. "Soundstage" is a combination of definable ingredients. It doesn't have to be a mystery; that's just lazy and convenient. "Micro dynamics" is dynamics, period. And it is defined, primarily, by the depth of the noise floor and the resulting ability of the softest sounds in a recording to be heard. Using some universally accepted and understood language would really be helpful. Making it up as we go along just leads us to bad communication and worse poetry.

Tim

I think it would be great to use better and more clear terms. However, who decides what the language should be. For example: which is better, depth or height, or level of the noise floor? Depth refers to front to back distance when discussing soundstage. What does depth of the noise floor mean? What about how dark the background is? Is depth a better term to use than height or level? There are many examples of this when discussing audio. Degrees of difference are relative, and reviews could just be a list of attributes and levels on a 1-10 scale, devoid of any prose. This might seem useful at first, even refreshing, but soon we would be asking how the grader came up with these scores if not in direct comparison to other similar products. I actually like the HiFi+ reviews where there is a combination of prose and scores for performance.

The other problem is that when comparative reviews are not conducted, and a component is reviewed in a vacuum, poetry is often the best way to describe how a component effects the listener emotionally. After all, is this not what we want in the long term with our systems, to feel more emotionally connected to our music? Image a review of a SET amplifier. If the reviewer is not directly comparing its sound to a reference amplifier in the system, what is left to write about?

Should forum writers be held to the same standards as professional reviewers? Should some standards be imposed, and if so, by whom?

I recently read JV's review of the Magico M Project speaker in the current TAS. I have also heard this speaker multiple times in my friend MadFloyd's system. Valin actually does a pretty good job of describing what I have heard. If I were in the market for such a speaker, I think I would find this review very helpful. He also reviewed my speakers which I subsequently went to hear and bought. Again, his review was close to what I heard when auditioning them. Though these reviews were extremely positive, they also seemed full of introspection and not a lot of hyperbole.

 

[microstrip]

(...) I recently read JV's review of the Magico M Project speaker in the current TAS. I have also heard this speaker multiple times in my friend MadFloyd's system. Valin actually does a pretty good job of describing what I have heard. If I were in the market for such a speaker, I think I would find this review very helpful. He also reviewed my speakers which I subsequently went to hear and bought. Again, his review was close to what I heard when auditioning them. Though these reviews were extremely positive, they also seemed full of introspection and not a lot of hyperbole.

Peter,

JV review is a very interesting piece, enjoyable, well written and I was very happy to read there a few thinks I have written before about previous Magico speakers. However it fails to tell people how the M Project sounds. I appreciated it mainly because I have listened to the speaker and some of the speakers he refers to, but IMHO his generalizations about the competition are excessive and sometimes misleading. For me, the whole review depends excessively on the Raidho D5, that I have never listened to.

And fortunately yes, the very little times it refers to listening to recordings, it is as hyperbolic as needed, e.g. " For instance, in Nights in the Gardens of Spain, Falla uses a softly struck cymbal to double the violins. Via the M Pro, the wonderful color that the cymbal’s overtones are adding to the color of the strings is revealed as if, once again, the music were being reproduced with surtitles describing the orchestration "

 

[Ron Resnick]

I think it would be great to use better and more clear terms. However, who decides what the language should be. For example: which is better, depth or height, or level of the noise floor? Depth refers to front to back distance when discussing soundstage. What does depth of the noise floor mean?

That is a fair question, Peter. I think that, with respect to your example of noise floor, "depth" and "level" are essentially synonyms.

Whether someone writes . . .

"By switching from my tube preamp to my new solid state preamp I hear about a 20% quieter background; it sounds to me like the level of the noise floor dropped by about 20%" or

"By switching from my tube preamp to my new solid state preamp I hear about a 20% quieter background; it sounds to me like the depth of the noise floor is now lower by about 20%"

. . . I understand the same improvement being described.

Perhaps the bigger issue is the magnitude of difference applied to the noun in question (e.g., noise floor). I made it easy for myself in this example by making up the number 20%, but a numerical estimate, or an adjective such as "tiny" or "small" or "slight" describing the magnitude of improvement, tells me more than writing "it was like someone turned the noise off inside my listening room" or "I could really hear the instruments for the first time" or "everything sounds louder."

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Noise floor already has an agreed and universally used descriptor -dB,
Keith.

This. No one has to make up the language to describe audio, it already exists. Of course without measurements, and there are few of those in audio reviews, and almost none on discussion boards, even the existing language is subject to all kinds of interpretation. In spite of that weakness, I think it would be a lot more useful if we described what we hear in terms of noise floor, frequency response, precision of imaging, etc., rather than co-opting terms like "musical," which refers to performance, not reproduction, or making up ridiculous terms like PRAT. This is one of my favorites, PRAT, because it is so absurd. I'm a musician; I can set a metronome to a clock radio and tell you the precise beats per minute. Yet audiophiles imagine that their preamp has an impact on the Pace, Rhythm and Timing of their music. Even some broadly-used terms like soundstage become theater in the hands of audiophiles and audiophile reviewers. "Soundstage" is a function of imaging and dynamics -- the ability of your system (mostly your speakers) to present a precise horizontal stereo image and the relative audible volume of instruments, voices and passages (mostly the recording, dynamic range next) in a space (all your room). Yet I have often seen a superior soundstage attributed to sources known to have significant crosstalk and relatively high noise. Heck, I've even seen audiophiles wax poetic about a precise vertical soundstage. In stereo. Where there is no vertical programming and there are no vertical sources, amps or speakers. A man hears what he wants to hear...

And yes, I know, I repeat myself. But as long as the fiction continues to be repeated, the reality bears repeating.

Tim

 

[Ronm1]

That's it, lets reserve words for specific descriptions only. As mentioned earlier keep copies of Roget's handy when reviewing. Heaven forbid faux-pas here. I had no issue with depth. One can swim, wade or cool your feet off or hopefully much less. Maybe an analogy would be better. Noise floor was so low that stylus noise came through loud and clear or noise floor was so high bit jitter was not perceivable or noise floor made it difficult to distinguish HiRes from redbook spec.

 

[PeterA]

If we describe what we hear in terms of noise floor, then we are quoting a measurement that an instrument is taking, not what we hear with our ears. Same with frequency response. I agree that most reviews are vague because sonic descriptions mean different things to different people, or worse, they are meaningless to readers like Tim. So if we eliminate those in favor of objective facts, then those are not what we hear as individuals writing a review, but rather, what instruments measure about a component's performance.

Are people advocating for reviews that are basically a list of measurements showing noise floor level, distortion level and specifications of known audio performance metrics without any prose attached? Would this be enough to tell us how a component sounds? Or is my example too extreme?

I would think then that an entire review could consist of 3-4 nice photographs and a quarter page of numbers and graphs. There would be no need to have more than one review per component and only those with the necessary measuring devices would be able to put together a review. I think we went down this road in the Reviewer thread with PeterB.

Perhaps I don't fully understand what Tim is suggesting.

 

[Groucho]

If subjective descriptions comprise only objective type terminology ("the noise floor was reduced leading to a better impression of dynamics") then that directly denies that there is any mystery in audio (something I agree with in principle) and suggests that there are very few variables to worry about. It also suggests that a system can be fully described by a set of measurements which I agree with in principle but probably not in practice.

There is still room for a sense of surprise in audio whereby a combination of factors results in a revelation about what is possible, and what is captured in a recording. It may not be obvious which factor led to this revelatory performance, and attempts to describe it in objective terms may be misleading. Two of my favourite examples: the difference between passive and active speakers, and the difference between ported and sealed enclosures. These comparisons are not adequately described in terms of frequency response, noise or distortion because they simply do not show up in the standard measurements. The differences are related to time domain, dynamic or phase-related factors. It's subtle stuff, and systems with and without such issues may sound different but without any way to put that difference into words. The best one might come up with for the system with problems is "The attack of tympani sounded muted." or something like that, which wouldn't meet with Tim's approval, I think.

 

[jkeny]

I recently saw a portrait painting in a small cafe on holiday & the overriding impression which struck me was that the painting exuded life - in other words there was more to it than a photograph of the subject could reveal - it felt like I had more of an emotional connection with the portrait's subject or that an aspect of the subject's aliveness was being captured. Should I be able to describe this in terms of light & shade, skin tone, hues & colours, brush strokes, etc? I don't believe so - I think an honest reports of my impressions is not hyperbole.

Do I know if the feelings that the painting evoked are what the painter intended? Do I know if the subject was rendered in a realistic manner? No, all I have is my feelings & impressions. Others might consider my words hyperbole & then again others may concur. If enough people independently concur with my impressions (without knowing what my impressions are) then I have to assume that there is something in the painting which evokes these emotions (in some people, at least).

Is this not similar to our impressions in audio? All we can judge is our impressions of the audio portrayal we are listening to. We often don't know if it is a recording of a real audio event or a stitched together interpretation.

So we come down to the old question of measurements Vs perception & how they correlate. At a certain gross level measurements are useful. Beyond this they fail greatly in their ability to predict how we will perceive audio. A simple example of noise will probably be useful to illustrate this - noise at a certain level when intrusive enough to be perceived as background noise, when reduced, is perceived as a simple reduction in background noise. Noise which is not perceived directly as background noise, when reduced, is perceived in a completely different way - often as an increase in loudness, an increase in the delineation of individual instruments in a the soundstage & even an increased solidity to the illusion - better depth & layering. Look at the posted impressions on CA of the Uptone Audio Regen for examples of this. The extent to which we perceive these improvements have mostly to do with the underlying noise level (& probably the noise modulation) of our playback systems - it's possible to negate any such benefits with a playback system which masks the improvements in the source.

Given the variables involved, would it be useful or even possible to say that the improvement that was heard with an audio device was a reduction in noise? I know a number of people would dismiss this type of report as trivial because they would take the description literally, as I've seen so often, interpreting it to mean a reduction in perceivable noise, rather than an understanding of the possible psychoacoustic effects of such noise reduction can have.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Well, I think you have touched on one of the key problems. I personally think that descriptions of emotional impressions based on listening to a piece of audio gear are virtually worthless. It is the music, not the sound of the gear, that stimulates the emotions. And, emotional reactions are fleeting, totally inconsistent from hearing to hearing and dependent on so many extraneous influences, some trivial, many unconscious, that it boggles the mind.

I think reviewers and commentators should stick with describing the sound of what they are hearing. Good reviewers do that, inexperienced wannabes do not. Emotions do nothing but cloud the issue and they are part of the whole hyperbole problem. As I have said before many times, the size of one's goosebumps on first listening to component X really may have little to do with how it actually sounds. If people think it is the sound of the audio component that triggers their emotional high, no wonder they are later disenchanted when hearing the same music through the same system triggers a different or lesser emotional response, which it will do, guaranteed.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Fitzcaraldo, I'd agree that when we are assessing a system in purely objective terms it does make sense to stay primarily with objective terminology but then when assessing the same gear in subjective ways it is equally useful to talk predominantly in subjective terms by describing the qualities of our experience of that system or component when playing music.

I believe the key is not in either denying the facts of system performance or ignoring the importance of how we experience the nature of the sound when listening to music through our individual perception but more importantly understanding how these two things are actually inextricably linked.

 

[jkeny]

Well, I think you have touched on one of the key problems. I personally think that descriptions of emotional impressions based on listening to a piece of audio gear are virtually worthless. It is the music, not the sound of the gear, that stimulates the emotions. And, emotional reactions are fleeting, totally inconsistent from hearing to hearing and dependent on so many extraneous influences, some trivial, many unconscious, that it boggles the mind.

I think reviewers and commentators should stick with describing the sound of what they are hearing. Good reviewers do that, inexperienced wannabes do not. Emotions do nothing but cloud the issue and they are part of the whole hyperbole problem. As I have said before many times, the size of one's goosebumps on first listening to component X really may have little to do with how it actually sounds. If people think it is the sound of the audio component that triggers their emotional high, no wonder they are later disenchanted when hearing the same music through the same system triggers a different or lesser emotional response, which it will do, guaranteed.

I think you confuse emotions with impressions in my post (I know I used the phrase "emotional connection" to try to describe it) - I didn't say it moved me emotionally, I said it portrayed a certain live quality that a photograph lacks. There are many photographs that move me emotionally but a painting can capture a certain essence in a subject that a photograph can't - it's the artist highlighting, in subtle ways, a certain aspect of the subject that he/she sees & strives to capture.

Yes, MAY being the important word in the highlighted piece above. It MAY also have everything to do with how it actually sounds. As I said if there is widespread, uninfluenced agreement coming to the same conclusion, it leads me to conclude that there is an objective reason for my perception. If I live with the device & continue to perceive it in the same way then why should I care what is the underlying reason for my perception.

I wonder where your guarantee of lesser emotional response is coming from? Are you basing it on the fact that many audiophiles change their systems on an ongoing basis? Just because we change audio devices doesn't mean that we now think what we had before was junk. Often it's because they are improving their systems & discovering new aspects of realism in audio reproduction as their systems improve. Yes, we can go down wrong paths & cul-de-sacs in this journey. As I said in my last post, I believe underlying noise modulation in a system is one of the biggest barriers to the perceived realism of reproduced audio. The more this is brought under control, the more realistic the audio system sounds. Could I be wrong - yes but it's a working theory that currently seems to fit my experience & recent uncovering of the thresholds of our perception of noise (ITU-R-468) which is more sensitive by > 12dB centered around 6Khz only strengthens this.

I'm reminded of some Leonard Cohen lyrics when reading yours & other's posts
"I fought against the bottle,
But I had to do it drunk –
Took my diamond to the pawnshop –
But that don’t make it junk.

I know that I’m forgiven,
But I don’t know how I know
I don’t trust my inner feelings –
Inner feelings come and go."

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I recently saw a portrait painting in a small cafe on holiday & the overriding impression which struck me was that the painting exuded life - in other words there was more to it than a photograph of the subject could reveal - it felt like I had more of an emotional connection with the portrait's subject or that an aspect of the subject's aliveness was being captured. Should I be able to describe this in terms of light & shade, skin tone, hues & colours, brush strokes, etc? I don't believe so - I think an honest reports of my impressions is not hyperbole.

Do I know if the feelings that the painting evoked are what the painter intended? Do I know if the subject was rendered in a realistic manner? No, all I have is my feelings & impressions. Others might consider my words hyperbole & then again others may concur. If enough people independently concur with my impressions (without knowing what my impressions are) then I have to assume that there is something in the painting which evokes these emotions (in some people, at least).

Is this not similar to our impressions in audio? All we can judge is our impressions of the audio portrayal we are listening to. We often don't know if it is a recording of a real audio event or a stitched together interpretation.

In my opinion, no, it's not similar to our impressions of audio. It's similar to our impressions of music. You're comparing the emotional impact of art to a photograph. It would be an appropriate analogy to audio if you were comparing a print of a photograph of the painting to the reproduction of a recording of the music. Audio is reproduction. It is not the art itself. It isn't even close.

Tim

 

[treitz3]

...... Audio is reproduction. It is not the art itself. It isn't even close.

Tim

I don't know whether to applaud you loudly or whether I want to cry with that statement. Perhaps both with my experience. Well said, regardless.

I just read that and it hit home.

Tom

 

[853guy]

It would be an appropriate analogy to audio if you were comparing a print of a photograph of the painting to the reproduction of a recording of the music. Audio is reproduction. It is not the art itself. It isn't even close.

Tim

No, that’s still not appropriate. Whether we view the painting itself, or a photograph of a photograph of a photograph of the painting, we would only ever need to use our eyes to perceive it. There is no intermediary mechanism required.

To listen to a reproduction of a recording of the music (an LP, digital file, radio signal) always involves an intermediary mechanism.

In this sense the reproduction chain is inextricably linked to our perception of the original art. We certainly cannot perceive the latter without the former, and we cannot perceive an individual component’s sound without it entering into a dynamic relationship with other components.

Due to the nature of the laws of thermodynamics, this mechanism (the reproduction chain) comprised of several non-linear individual components linked together to form a less-linear system which becomes unpredictably and immeasurably less-linear when playing back music is therefore always part of the re-performance of the original art as captured and formatted.

Because the laws of physics tell me perfect reproduction is impossible, I therefore cannot deny that this non-linear mechanism has anything less than an interpretative role in playing back pre-recorded art, and why acknowledging my preference for particular non-linearities is about the most honest I can be in discussing any audio component and its cumulative effect on my perception of it when playing back music.

 

[jkeny]

In my opinion, no, it's not similar to our impressions of audio. It's similar to our impressions of music. You're comparing the emotional impact of art to a photograph. It would be an appropriate analogy to audio if you were comparing a print of a photograph of the painting to the reproduction of a recording of the music. Audio is reproduction. It is not the art itself. It isn't even close.

Tim

I don't know whether to applaud you loudly or whether I want to cry with that statement. Perhaps both with my experience. Well said, regardless.

Tim & Tom, do you believe you are hearing the original audio event (if this was even a recording of an audio event rather than some stitched together individual recordings) when you listen to audio reproduction?
If you don't then please define what you think you are listening to?

 

[Groucho]

No, that’s still not appropriate. Whether we view the painting itself, or a photograph of a photograph of a photograph of the painting, we would only ever need to use our eyes to perceive it. There is no intermediary mechanism required.

To listen to a reproduction of a recording of the music (an LP, digital file, radio signal) always involves an intermediary mechanism.

What is a camera or scanner -> printer or video screen if not an intermediary mechanism? Unless we are present at the original source of the image/audio we will always be perceiving it via intermediary mechanisms.

I could re-phrase your post as

"Whether we listen to the live performance, or a recording of a recording of a recording of the performance, we would only ever need to use our ears to perceive it. There is no intermediary mechanism required.

To look at a reproduction of a captured image (a chemical print, digital file, television signal) always involves an intermediary mechanism."

 

[jkeny]

What is a camera or scanner -> printer or video screen if not an intermediary mechanism? Unless we are present at the original source of the image/audio we will always be perceiving it via intermediary mechanisms.

I could re-phrase your post as

Right & our senses are intermediary devices between the physical world & our brain - which is the mechanism that creates our impression of reality. Note not a RE-creation of reality, as such but a creation of some filtered & reconstructed version of reality.

The fact that we, as individuals, generally concur in our versions of this reality is because we are hard-wired to do so as a result of the genetic imperative of reproduction - in other words our senses provide us with enough information of the world to ensure our reproductive capabilities - this could be why emotion is so strongly associated with perception ?

So, to imagine that we are sensing the world as-is, & not through our sense filters & brain reconstruction is illogical.

Hence the reconstruction is done by a rule-based mechanism & things that don't adhere to these rules are considered illusory anomalies. Things that match these rules are real to us. The reproduction of audio through a 2 channel device relies on the creation of an illusion - the better the match that this illusion has to our inherent rules, the more realistic it will be.

That's all we have to judge audio reproduction

 

[853guy]

What is a camera or scanner -> printer or video screen if not an intermediary mechanism? Unless we are present at the original source of the image/audio we will always be perceiving it via intermediary mechanisms.

I could re-phrase your post as:

""Whether we listen to the live performance, or a recording of a recording of a recording of the performance, we would only ever need to use our ears to perceive it. There is no intermediary mechanism required. To look at a reproduction of a captured image (a chemical print, digital file, television signal) always involves an intermediary mechanism."

To look at a chemical print requires we use only our eyes. We perceive the print directly, with no intermediary mechanism. A digital file cannot be perceived directly by our senses, and neither can a television signal, which is why I limited my examples solely to the two examples Tim used in his initial post of painting and photography.

As far as pre-recorded music goes, a radio broadcast, LP, CD, SACD, .wav., .mp3, tape reel, etc., all require an intermediary mechanism because the original art form is a time-based one. It's the same for film, television, and digital video - they're time-based mediums and require an intermediary mechanism. This is of course apart from the fact the individual frames of the negative of the film itself can be viewed directly, but it's difficult to argue individual frames of a motion picture constitute the intention of how the artist's work should be experienced.

 

[Groucho]

To look at a chemical print requires we use only our eyes. We perceive the print directly, with no intermediary mechanism. A digital file cannot be perceived directly by our senses, and neither can a television signal, which is why I limited my examples solely to the two examples Tim used in his initial post of painting and photography.

It is a distinction I do not understand. We perceive images by transducing light rays into signals coupled into the brain. We hear sounds by transducing air pressure variations into signals coupled into the brain. We have devices that are analogues of our biological transducers and can transmit or store and replay renderings of those signals as though through a 'portal' in time and space. The quality of the 'portal' is related to factors like resolution, dynamic range, linearity.

The big question is: can a man-made portal adequately convey a real life experience, or does it need to be 'embellished' to compensate for inherent and unavoidable limitations? If the former, we only need to consider the portal's design and measurements in assessing its quality. If the latter, anything goes - although there must be better ways of achieving it than hoping that accidental side-effects of archaic technology can provide it.

(I am in the former camp).