Tone Audio: Neil Young Visits Meridian!

[NorthStar]

Neil is also a business man; he knows that music for the masses is in the form of downloading, and that the young ones are listening to compressed music in the form of MP3 or another. What he likes as an audiophile doesn't necessarily follow his business plan.

* Does he have a turntable at home? I'm sure he has, but does he use it? I doubt it, at least not like some people do here.

DVD-Audio is gone, and Blu-ray Audio doesn't have a grip (like 3D).
I wonder what's Neil's take on multichannel music from SACD? ...I believe he's more of a stereo man. ...But I could be wrong (yes I know that he prefers stereo; he's an old fashioned man).

I bet he's into hi-res digital audio from his DAC inside his PC (or Mac). ...Neil, is he a Microsoft type of guy or an Apple convert?

Meridian (& Bob Stuart), they seem to be quiet nowadays. ...Do they have a 'special' DAC for your music server?
How's business this side of 'active' loudspeakers?

 

[JackD201]

If they are getting points from Dolby for TrueHD's use of MLP, they should be doing fine.

 

[NorthStar]

Yes, Meridian has a brand new USB Explorer compact DAC ($299), a la 'DragonFly' style. ...Just google it.

Blu-Ray Audio could have a hi-res multichannel (5.1) Lossless audio track (Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio or LPCM uncompressed hi-res audio),
and a stereo audio track at hi-res (96 or 192 or 88 or 176 or even 354kHz and 24-bit with up to 32-bit).
* But I don't believe that the total of those is enormous, and it doesn't have much penetration and motivation and advertising either; just like SACD.

Nowadays it is the hi-res music server. ...Neil has probably one of those, and most likely he's using it too.

By the way, the multichannel audio track from Blu-ray Audio could have 96/24 no sweat.

____________________

In high-end video, we know that 4K is already here, and that 8K and even 16K are in the future.
But in high-end audio, what is next? ...Better microphone recording techniques? ...Better artists performing 'real' music? ...We already have some of those/them.
...New music mediums? ..Total elimination of distortion, jitter, tics, pops, phase-accurate, no clipping from the full audio spectrum, etc.?
...Better audio gear? ...Turntables with anti-vibration devices? ...Same with CD/SACD/Blu-ray players? ...And same too with music servers and computers?
...Better loudspeakers and affordable too? ...With real-live sound reproduction?

Yesterday $100,000 gave us that, today $50,000 gives us this, tomorrow $25,000 will give us what?
...And last but not least; what tomorrow's $500,000 stereo sound system will sound like? ...And will it include room's treatments and active EQ?

You gotta love it, this hobby we chose soon after being born! :b ...Is it an addiction to aural pleasure? ...Yes and no; it's a passion that balances things out in this world of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

I luv Neil, he's a cool guy. :b

 

[jdza]

I guess the person that wrote the article for Meridian isn't a car guy. Range Rover Vogue?

Huh? I'm trying hard to forget my period of ownership but from the little I do remember the top of the range RR always was and probably always will be called the Vogue.

 

[Groucho]

http://www.audiostream.com/content/qa-elliot-mazer

I learned engineering and concepts for studio design while producing.

There's "engineering" and there's engineering... One type could be twiddling knobs on mixing desks, and another could be working out the mathematics behind noise-shaped dither (for example). Which are we talking about here? There's also different levels of "teaching", "design", "consulting" and "inventing". I know someone who "teaches" and "consults" on video production at a university, but he's basically a jobbing videographer with enough chutzpah to persuade equipment companies to sponsor him and talk to students about the rules of thumb he knows. If he had opinions on bit rates and anti-aliasing filters they would be less than 'authoritative'.

A standard listening test has people wearing calibrated earphones. The subjects push a button when they hear a sound. Most people stop hearing sound when the frequencies go up and beyond 35K. When the sweep comes down people start hearing the sounds around 50K.

Isn't this out by at least a factor of 2 for a young person, never mind a 70-odd year old?



"An article by Monty Montgomery, the developer of the OGG Vorbis audio format, titled "24/192 Music Downloads...and why they make no sense" has caused a stir and has some people questioning the value of 24/192 recordings..."

That person must be deaf... If he cannot hear the distortions created by 44.1 or 48, he needs a hearing aid.

That could be quite an accusation to make against a professional whose reputation is based on understanding the limits of human auditory perception. Luckily, being an engineer and scientist, Montgomery can refer to the genuine scientific research in the field and not simply his own sighted 'tests' and confirmation of his own biases.

(And is Mazer being similarly 'frank and honest' with well-known deafness-sufferer Pete Townshend in the photo?)


Anyway, I much prefer Montgomery's approach:
[video]https://media.xiph.org/monty/episode-02/02-Digital_Show_and_Tell.360p.webm[/video]

 

[Andre Marc]

http://www.audiostream.com/content/qa-elliot-mazer



There's "engineering" and there's engineering... One type could be twiddling knobs on mixing desks, and another could be working out the mathematics behind noise-shaped dither (for example). Which are we talking about here? There's also different levels of "teaching", "design", "consulting" and "inventing". I know someone who "teaches" and "consults" on video production at a university, but he's basically a jobbing videographer with enough chutzpah to persuade equipment companies to sponsor him and talk to students about the rules of thumb he knows. If he had opinions on bit rates and anti-aliasing filters they would be less than 'authoritative'.



Isn't this out by at least a factor of 2 for a young person, never mind a 70-odd year old?

View attachment 10240

"An article by Monty Montgomery, the developer of the OGG Vorbis audio format, titled "24/192 Music Downloads...and why they make no sense" has caused a stir and has some people questioning the value of 24/192 recordings..."



That could be quite an accusation to make against a professional whose reputation is based on understanding the limits of human auditory perception. Luckily, being an engineer and scientist, Montgomery can refer to the genuine scientific research in the field and not simply his own sighted 'tests' and confirmation of his own biases.

(And is Mazer being similarly 'frank and honest' with well-known deafness-sufferer Pete Townshend in the photo?)


Anyway, I much prefer Montgomery's approach:
[video]https://media.xiph.org/monty/episode-02/02-Digital_Show_and_Tell.360p.webm[/video]

Hey Groucho:

Interesting responses.

BTW, Pete Townshend says he is 95% cured of his tinnitus via a combination of medical and homeopathic treatments.
He calls it nothing less than miraculous.

 

[Andre Marc]

Neil is very opinionated, not always consistent, and....I think the word is eccentric. And he is on record more than once confusing bad mastering to CD with CD. I think he's still confusing good mastering with hi-resolution, but we all know there are varying opinions on that one. Personally, I'd take a good, not even great, master at 16/44.1 over an average commercial master at any rate you've got. And I find that there are so few artists who are slack enough to allow their CD product to be ruined, yet aware enough to produce totally different masters for hi-res, that I haven't yet seen the point in installing a plug-in for iTunes that automatically switches to hi-res. YM, of course, MV.

P

Pretty much agree on all points. I have however, been noticing that there are a few artists whose high rez downloads
are totally different in mastering than the corresponding CD. Gary Clark Jr. is one shining example