Just one instance
Michael Fremer Joins The Absolute Sound
- Thread starter Lee
- Start date
Just one instance
I was asking TAS owner how he will bring back trust into his business with some compliance rules that needs to be set up in order to put some verity into the reviews printed in his magazine?
There needs to be measurements for instance that proof the authors conclusions and if those conclusions can´t be proofed by measurements they can´t be printed on paper anymore. Something like that I would expect to be put into TAS compliance rules after what happend to the industry.
I hope Michael Fremer does a review directly comparing the SME model 60 to his prototype OMA K3 as seen in the backdrop of this video.
I don't see the value if the reviewer is proven unable to distinguish digital from analog but still claiming to be able to. Even if you give him too much credit for allegedly having had an idea about some re-releases, he was not able to explain his findings correctly in a journalistic manner or to communicate them to the reader correctly in any way. Apart from a lot of viral marketing from which only he and his employer will benefit, there will not be anything of value in there. Value for readers therefore will be zero.
Now we are getting somewhere. Thank you for posting this. Your quote is substantially accurate. But let’s use exactly accurate quotes.
“90% of the time I can hear it [a digital step], and I’ve said it.”
I thought you were referring to instances in which Michael has said, prior to this Mobile Fidelity scandal, that he could always detect a digital step. But, no matter, Michael is stating this now, and seemingly without regard to timeframe.
Michael goes on to say:
“I never suspected they were cut from digital. I heard something I didn’t like. I thought it was maybe only EQ related.”
So if Michael did not suspect that these Mobile Fidelity releases were cut from digital, were these Mobile Fidelity releases in the 10% subset where Michael could not hear a digital step?
Alternatively, Michael is on record as not liking many of the Mobile Fidelity releases in comparison to other releases of the same title. So, if Mobile Fidelity had not misled everybody, perhaps Michael would’ve suspected that the reason he was hearing something he “didn’t like” was as a result of a digital step. In other words, maybe Michael would have suspected a digital step upon hearing something he “didn’t like” if Mobile Fidelity had not effectively foreclosed a digital step as a suspect for what Michael was hearing.
after reading thousands of data points of Michael Fremer's viewpoint over almost 30 years, and then listening to pressings or gear and hearing the same or similar for confirmation time and time again, you want to completely dismiss him about this?
certainly everyone has to own what they write, and Michael himself sets his bar really high, but that logic does not hold water.
if his net value is zero then others are all much less than that.
I don’t know enough about the field of logic to know the technical name of this particular type of fallacy, but I know this argument makes no sense. The fact that a measuring instrument is not always correct (or has a known variance range), does not, therefore, make it always incorrect.
Perhaps so, but where else are you gonna read anything about the OMA K3 turntable? Others will review the new SME flagship. Than that information can be used as data to reference when Fremer writes about his tables. The problem is that reviewers rarely ever make comparative reviews between competing products. I’m just saying it would be nice if he did that simply because no one else will. Now, relative value is a different thing entirely.
The human ear is not a measuring instrument, but is misinterpreted as such. Incidentally, it is in the nature of measuring devices that they only make the slightest mistake, which cannot be avoided according to specifications in terms of their technical design. If you find a larger error, then the measurement method was not effective or there is an error in the measurement setup. Measuring devices and their results are actually always correct.
I was making an analogy.
If measuring devices and their results are always correct, then why do measuring devices have +/- error ranges in their specifications? (I’m not being rhetorical; I am not a scientist, and I do not know the answer. Perhaps a scientist like Marty or Al M can weigh in on this.)
Last edited:
That´s quite easy to answer: Because electronical parts always are made to specs with an dedicated tolerance. A designer chooses out of those tolerance ranges and component (quality) categories in accordance to purpose. It´s quite simliar to mechanical parts. There you´ll find also different fits for e.g. shaft and it´s sleeve for forming a bearing or a special rollerbearing with dedicated tolerances.
Within the electronics design the sum of all tolerances of the components used defines at least the overall error range. But this inherent error range has nothing to do with errors in regards of measuring won´t be any correct.
To translate this into football: The ball will be in even with 2% error range on your feet or shoe. But it won´t be in if someone will shoot in opposite direction, with M. Fremer always shooting into opposite direction when he says he can tell to 90% whether records was produces with digital steps or fully analog. Furthermore all reviewers are shooting at any but none of them at the same direction when they do not proof their findings by measuring.
Without measurement, not a single one of these reviews contains any usable statement. On the contrary: they are individual opinions from people with very different sound ideals, individual preferences and highly subjective quality standards that do nat reflect physics at all. None of the opinions obtained in this way are valid or say anything about the real quality of any device or record.
Last edited:
I wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot pole. But you do raise a valid point that Don seems to not appreciate which is the difference between accuracy and precision for any measuring instrument
Peter, maybe it's best they don't, especially for new vs old product comparisons. Otherwise we might be stunned to learn just how little some things have truly advanced the art of music reproduction in a significant way. in some cases, as I'm sure you and other vintage aficionados would agree, we might even learn that not everything new is indeed better! I think the Who wrote a song about this called "Won't get fooled again".
.
Measurement devices are either accurate or not, depending on their tolerances and calibration. If I have a voltmeter and miscalibrated it to read 120V when there is 110V in the line, then even if the precision/accuracy is down to 10 decimal points, the device has correctly measured the voltage, but it is not correct.
Now, what instrument can be used to tell the difference between an AAA recording and an AAD?
Also, MF's (and others) reviews are meant to inform us what the recording sounds like on the media being reviewed. Put me in the basket of people who will buy a recording regardless of provenance if I think it sounds good. All my MoFi 1-Steps (3) have been opened and played multiple times. I don't plan on returning them any time soon, but if someone offers me the $5K that one is listed for on eBay I'd be sorely tempted to sell it as that's a lot of other recordings I can buy.
Beau
Sorry, you are mixing accuracy and precision, two very different things. And I fail to see the point of telling us that your voltmeter has poor quality. When we say Instruments are accurate this means proper instruments withing their calibration error.
Spectral analysis of the analog and the digital recording can probably do it. Or simply recording in digital both recordings and looking for the effects of two successive A/D and D/A conversions.
Well, I feel the same as you. But I will sell mine at $1k just because I do not think they are worth this value and it is a great deal.
Was trying to show that something can be precise but not accurate i.e. MF is very precise in what he has said but it may turn our he's not very accurate.
You probably know better than me.
Well, I feel the same as you. But I will sell mine at $1k just because I do not think they are worth this value and it is a great deal.
That I understand and it seems that the asking prices haven't been lowered post-controversy so either these are flippers who aren't aware or the values truly haven't gone down. I am keeping mine as I play it a lot.
Beau
Oops, I posted this in the wrong thread!
So, I had an interesting experience last week. I dropped by an acquaintance's place last week and he invited me for a listen. He had a complicated system, all tubes, and he played his Metaxas R2R with a tube head amp for me. He played some recent all analog recordings of vocal jazz. Now I have a good amount of experience with R2R, I've owned one and I've heard some peak systems with them. I don't currently have analog at home, its hi-rez digital and all solid state, but my good TT has been waiting for some attention to set it back up.
If I was listening blind, I would have swore that I was listening to digital. I heard glare riding on vocals with little air around instruments, and less 'room', depth and soundstage than I do with my system on a good similar recording. So it just goes to show that you really can get to your own version of sonic bliss with careful and obsessive attention! It gave me some peace of mind that I am not necessarily missing anything, and I have been moving in the right direction.
If I was listening blind, I would have swore that I was listening to digital. I heard glare riding on vocals with little air around instruments, and less 'room', depth and soundstage than I do with my system on a good similar recording. So it just goes to show that you really can get to your own version of sonic bliss with careful and obsessive attention! It gave me some peace of mind that I am not necessarily missing anything, and I have been moving in the right direction.
Last edited:
Measuring devices have a "critical difference" which exceeds the test-retest variability of that specific instrument. Every medical instrument, for example, has a critical difference that must be known and respected. Values below the critical difference of a specific medical instrument are not necessarily real.
Repeatability - Wikipedia
For example, I use Ocular Coherence Tomography to monitor glaucoma patients in my ophthalmology practice. OCT can be used to measure optic nerve Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer (RNFL) thickness, particularly valuable in glaucoma care as RNFL progressively thins during glaucoma development and progression. OCT provides mean, quadrant and clock hour RNFL thickness (measures in microns) for each eye's scan, and mean RNFL thickness on Zeiss Cirrus OCT has a critical difference of 4 um (Investigative Opthalmology and Visual Science 2010;51:11:5724-30).
Example:
Assuming all scans are of good quality, a patient in my office with baseline optic nerve mean RNFL thickness of 80 um does not represent potential progression until RNFL measures 75 um or thinner (thereby exceeding the 4 um critical difference of my specific OCT instrument). A follow-up mean RNFL of 78 um, for example, would not be clinically significant relative to that measurement because the critical difference was not exceeded.
Hi Don,
If you knew Michael you would have seen him distinguish between 16/44 or 24/96 vinyl and AAA masterings. In the case on MFSL, he did not universally like all the One Step or regular MFSL releases.
Since I have been a huge DSD fan in both my professional recording and disc collecting, I know how close 4xDSD is to a master tape. I am not sure if anyone can distinguish between 4xDSD and AAA. That’s in fact why MFSL chose that to transfer music when they could not get the tapes over to Sebastopol. DSD is a beautiful and accurate sounding format.
As for your comments about how we do our reviews…history shows that when HP started TAS in the early 70s, measurements were not correlated much at all to many sound quality characteristics. Since then measurements have improved significantly but they still only capture a portion of the audio experience. We have remained steadfast in how we focus on subjective listening. Our growing subscription numbers and intense manufacturer competition for a review underscore how beneficial that is.
Not to be a skeptic over being honest
most can tell redbook from high Rez that’s fairly easy if playing in digital
to me 24/48 Is the better of the two formats you quote on
dsd is not analog even at 256 you know this as well.
msybe 512 is closer but close is not the point if one is being told it’s analog
worts , noise , eq it’s still analog or it’s not and hI Rez or dsd is not
you know this at the first needle drop of great real analog
i agree well done vinyl sourced from digital is great at times.
but being mislead is not fair
leave MF out of this please
I think he is good man a very important figure in audio but even he must bend the knee in many ways
just saying
Similar threads
Members online
- dminches
- Mike
- rob
- John T
- Wavetouch
- viola
- GSOphile
- tsaett
- Artnet
- rad
- Foxbat
- SlapEcho
- the sound of Tao
- wbass
- J007B
- gestalt
- Opabin
- RCanelas
- SOS
- kennyb123
- Johan K
- Geoffkait
- drrsutliff
- Newtonma
- No Regrets
- brad225
- dan31
- alwayslearning
- audioquest4life
- tomas329
- thase13
- Another Johnson
- Mike Lavigne
- Dentdog
- Channel1.0
- jazdoc
- cjfrbw
- ton77
- LarryK
- Miki70
- cpvniii
- Three quid
- Cappy
- trekpilot
- nattonrice
- g9taylor
- jpwelcher
- Brent71
 | Steve Williams Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator |  | Ron Resnick Site Co-Owner | Administrator |  | Julian (The Fixer) Website Build | Marketing Managersing |