Paul McGowan Prefers Digital
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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Peter, I’m surprised some of you guys are being sticks in the mud about in-room recordings. It took us 40+ years of conditioning to evaluate things talked and written about audio performance, and hopefully learning anew vocabulary but we cannot comprehend evaluating audio performance by listening?
If it helps any, I can tell you that I’ve been to high-end audio dealers, high-end distributors’ homes, audio shows, friends and customers’ homes where their playback systems sounded less musical than even my most inferior in-room recording, if I even have one.
Like anything else, it’s all about conditioning. All it should take is to record a few sessions with your smart phone even with the built-in mic and then play them back on your smart phone, load ‘em up to your computer, and play ‘em again.
If you do it with music you’re intimately familiar with, I suspect within just a few recordings and playbacks you’ll easily grasp your smart phone’s potentials and limitations as well get ideas about the next guy’s potentials and limitations. I even found my iPhone XR’s built-in mic fairly impressive but it had some peaks and valleys. The Shure MV88 mic is really just a tad better but there seems to be few if any peaks and valleys across the spectrum.
As for comparing various systems, well, that was never my intent but once others start getting into the habit, who knows what in-room recordings might eventually be used for.
But I’m confident that sharing in-room recordings can:
- Help determine whether the author knows what he’s talking about or not.
- Help determine whether evaluators/commenters know what they are talking about.
- Help consumers in forums determine whether reviewers, who often times struggle as much as anybody, know what they are talking about.
- Help discern differences for before and after comparisons.
- Be used to share findings from new products and formats. MQA anybody?
- Be used to judge others’ character.
- Among other things, can be used for comparing various systems.
Compared to the alternative, at the very least, in-room recordings begins to hold all of us accountable for what we claim to know, claim to hear, claim what our systems can do, etc. and this alone I find to be a tremendous benefit for high-end audio because thus far it's been a bit like the wild wild west.
For example. In that Mike Lavigne thread, the other day somebody posted the following about my in-room recording of Miles Davis,
“Only listen to this system 5sec through my iphone i can tell your digital is low-end. There is no tone, decay, no dynamic. The soundstage is not deep. You got bass node problem in your room. Your room probably over damp too. You need new source. You probably has not any grounding in your system.”
There were a few others too. To me, this type of feedback is priceless. It tells me more about this author’s character than I ever wanted to know. If for no other reason than aside from 2 barely audible piano notes the first 5 seconds of So What is almost dead silence and the next 5 seconds ain’t much more. If not for the in-room recording, there’s no telling how many years this author might get away with such tom foolery. BTW, not one person said a thing about this author’s nonsensical comments and the question is, why not? But I know why.
High-end audio is absolutely overloaded with this type of tom foolery and many are financially harmed by such unaccountable behavior including vendors, mfg’ers, consumers, etc. And I have every reason to believe in-room recordings can help minimize much of this out-of-control unaccountable behavior.
I am the author of this comment. Haha. Why do you think i comment as such. The piano notes from MikeL system is way different than yours. It sounds like a different instrument. The depth of your sound stage is limited due to noises in your system. It does not create the feeling of being in recording. It also might mean that you have bass node problem. You know why i say that? Because i had base node in my room. Your system sound like a typical digital system where instrument dont give real feeling. So i suspect you dont have grounding which i think it address the RFI/EMI and make the system sounds more real.
If you are brave enough then you will try to play a piece like Tang's youtube video for other to comment. I suggest the Campoli playing Mendelssohn to see the bigger delta between your digital system and state of the art LP system.
Kind regards,
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Excellent post, Hieukm. I've been making the same suggestion. No sticks in the mud here. We are encouraging Stehno to start a thread so that he can discuss what he hears in his recordings from his system and we can comment. A comparison between his digital and Tang's analog is great suggestion.
Interestingly, Stehno talks about vibration management, not isolation, and his system should reflect those improvements. His comments elsewhere seem to suggest this exact thing. I would be very curious to watch a before and after video comparison of the sound of his system. Now that would be an interesting thread from which I might be able to learn something about his extensive ideas in the area of vibration management. We are all hear to learn.
...
Your comments are as nonsensical as last time but what most impresses me is your incredible bravado.
It’s rather hard to take you seriously about any of this and if I respond to your individual points I’m giving you credence and I cannot see why you deserve any such thing.
But I do appreciate the fact that because you experienced a bass node problem, you justify yourself aa a bass node expert. That’s fine. But answer me this. Since every last one of us have encountered one or more bass node problems in our past and even presently, would it not be fair to say that we’re all equal to your level of bass node expertise?
Also, you never retracted your “listening for 5 seconds on your smart phone” comment so I assume that’s still applicable (or just reckless). Using that same video, why not walk us through those first 5 seconds and share with us exactly when and why you’ve been able to discern all of this from 2 soft piano notes playing at maybe 65db and maybe 2 bass notes playing at 58db on an iphone speaker?
I'm curious, Peter. Which part of Hieukm’s post did you think was excellent? All of it? Because I could not find a single thing he said that contained any logic or real knowledge. Maybe it’s just me but all I read is reckless abandon. Oh, well.
You know, Hieukm, in my sojourn I’ve encountered a few people possessing extremely well-trained ears. But they apparently couldn’t hold a candle to what you can do with 5 seconds and 2 soft piano notes and 2 even softer bass notes from an iphone speaker. Why not take out your smart phone and record a nice piece or two and post it so we can hear where you’re coming from? Surely a man of your stature would have a pretty incredible playback system.
I’m sooooo brave I’d be happy to see what I can muster up against Tang’s video. How about a link to Tang’s best youtube video?
With regard to Heiukm’s piano expertise, there is a valid reason why piano is known to be the single most difficult instrument to accurately reproduce. Below is an in-room recording of a closely mic’ed piano that in a few spots in the upper registers on lesser systems would leave listeners’ ears bleeding if not having the listener literally running from the room when played in the 96 – 98 db range which this is. For Heiukm’s information, any playback system that might be able to play this at these volume levels without any apparent break up or flattening out would have to have every last distortion absolutely minimized or it doesn’t work. Listening with any type of headphones should make matters far more evident than a smart phone or pc/mac built-in speakers.
Your comments are as nonsensical as last time but what most impresses me is your incredible bravado.
It’s rather hard to take you seriously about any of this and if I respond to your individual points I’m giving you credence and I cannot see why you deserve any such thing.
But I do appreciate the fact that because you experienced a bass node problem, you justify yourself aa a bass node expert. That’s fine. But answer me this. Since every last one of us have encountered one or more bass node problems in our past and even presently, would it not be fair to say that we’re all equal to your level of bass node expertise?
Also, you never retracted your “listening for 5 seconds on your smart phone” comment so I assume that’s still applicable (or just reckless). Using that same video, why not walk us through those first 5 seconds and share with us exactly when and why you’ve been able to discern all of this from 2 soft piano notes playing at maybe 65db and maybe 2 bass notes playing at 58db on an iphone speaker?
I'm curious, Peter. Which part of Hieukm’s post did you think was excellent? All of it? Because I could not find a single thing he said that contained any logic or real knowledge. Maybe it’s just me but all I read is reckless abandon. Oh, well.
You know, Hieukm, in my sojourn I’ve encountered a few people possessing extremely well-trained ears. But they apparently couldn’t hold a candle to what you can do with 5 seconds and 2 soft piano notes and 2 even softer bass notes from an iphone speaker. Why not take out your smart phone and record a nice piece or two and post it so we can hear where you’re coming from? Surely a man of your stature would have a pretty incredible playback system.
I’m sooooo brave I’d be happy to see what I can muster up against Tang’s video. How about a link to Tang’s best youtube video?
With regard to Heiukm’s piano expertise, there is a valid reason why piano is known to be the single most difficult instrument to accurately reproduce. Below is an in-room recording of a closely mic’ed piano that in a few spots in the upper registers on lesser systems would leave listeners’ ears bleeding if not having the listener literally running from the room when played in the 96 – 98 db range which this is. For Heiukm’s information, any playback system that might be able to play this at these volume levels without any apparent break up or flattening out would have to have every last distortion absolutely minimized or it doesn’t work. Listening with any type of headphones should make matters far more evident than a smart phone or pc/mac built-in speakers.
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It is okay that you dont think what i said it is correct. I dont even know if it is correct haha. I listen MikeL video and then i listen your video through my iphone. I comment about what i hear. I also listen to Tang youtube through my iphone. Oh well, maybe it is best not to go down this path since you think you knew it all.
P/S: just a thought, maybe the piano sounds like in this clip??
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It is okay that you dont think what i said it is correct. I dont even know if it is correct haha. I listen MikeL video and then i listen your video through my iphone. I comment about what i hear. I also listen to Tang youtube through my iphone. Oh well, maybe it is best not to go down this path since you think you knew it all.
P/S: just a thought, maybe the piano sounds like in this clip??
The piano in your video is reasonably nice. So? It's just a different type of recording in a different venue and to be honest it's a bit dime a dozen in my opinion.
The video I just provided above was not to show the beauty of the piano as a musical instrument in general but rather to demonstrate the potential havoc a closely mic'ed piano's sharp upper registers can cause on even a SOTA-level playback system at Audio Exotics which should not be able to reproduce without my product.
Audio Exotics, eh? Wanna' know what JLam said about my product?
Elsewhere, PianoMan said of my product that it was Audio Exotics' greatest find in recent years. You know what's really funny? That was when my product's performance was far closer to its infancy and today I'd venture it's about 3 times the performer it was then.
Please tell JLam I said hi.
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Sorry i thought you were an honest member trying improve his system. I did not realise you are seller of a "product". Now i understand your hostility toward my comment. You tried to attack my credibility rather than an obvious lack of your system. I withdraw myself from this conversation.
I don't blame you. Franky, I'm surprised it took you this long.
BTW, I've not mfg'ered nor sold anything for 8 years now. Though my R&D continues.
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It is okay that you dont think what i said it is correct. I dont even know if it is correct haha. I listen MikeL video and then i listen your video through my iphone. I comment about what i hear. I also listen to Tang youtube through my iphone. Oh well, maybe it is best not to go down this path since you think you knew it all.
P/S: just a thought, maybe the piano sounds like in this clip??
Hey that sounds pretty good.
I hope everyone can chime in with better examples. It is LP source fyi.
Thats the clip from Audioexotics showroom with Cessaro firebird + Robert Koda Phono + Robert Koda Pre + Engstrom Eric Mono + Vertere TT + all Argento FMR EE cables + Tripoint grounding gears.
Topwing Cartridge and Robert Koda Pre + Phono
I hope everyone can chime in with better examples. It is LP source fyi.
Yes we can see the tonearm on the record. The sound is unmistakingly (unmistakably) analog vinyl; sweet, lovely, warm, enveloping, romantic, proposing, engaging. ...Exactly like life is.
Wholeheartedly agree. Here is another one from a Ultra Hi-end system for everyone to discuss. This one is digital- CD Playback.
Sound recording for sound recording...youtube sound delivery; I much prefer the other one, sourced from the turntable.
This one here above (it don't matter to me the source); it sounds constricted, distorted, broken, old analgesic losing all its effect, painful, jittery, scary and neurotic. I'm just being honest on how I feel listening to it from that video.
Do you feel some verisimilitude to what I just experienced?
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