What does the source sound like...

[Gregadd]

And why should you care?​

What is in the groves, bits and magnetic pulses?
Whether your goal is musicality, accuracy or both the question is necessary to know exactly what the recording engineer captured?
Most of us have been to at least one product demonstration where the producer claimed to be able to vouch for the accuracy because he was present at the recording. I think the last time it happened it was Joe Sample and the demo was by Terry of Magico Q5 at overture Audio.IIRC
One would hope that accuracy and musicality are the same thing. I wish. We know instruments, voices and vary wildly. Not to the mastering engineers very different goals. How do we then asses musicality and accuracy?
It would appear then we can determine the sound of voices, )instruments and recording halls(studios). Accuracy of course is a little more difficult.
We can have some idea of what Yo-Yo Ma playing his cello live at Carnegie Hall sounds like. I recall that Dee Dee Bridgewater and Branford Marsalis with his father both put out CDs respectively. When they subsequently appeared at Blues Alley they played the exact same music.(I was not happy)
If we work at it we can come reasonably close to musicality.
I am not aware of any system that can reproduce a perfect copy of a recording. Indeed I am not aware of a perfect recording. If you are aware of either please enlighten me. So the question how close can we get? If we have an artist(s) and recording engineer using the best equipment we can do pretty well.
What say you?
There was a time I noted type of instrument, recording venue and even microphones and cutting lathes. It just did not seem reasonable.

 

[astrotoy]

Perfect is a pretty high standard. Interestingly, some of the great engineers and recording companies of 50 and 60 years ago still are references today. I am most familiar with classical and the great Decca recordings of that era hold up very well over time. Not perfect, however.

Larry

 

[Solypsa]

There was a time I noted type of instrument, recording venue and even microphones and cutting lathes. It just did not seem reasonable.

Based on your research do you have a favorite cutting lathe?

 

[Gregadd]

There was a period where the liner co ver reflected the type of microphone and thr lathe used to cut the master. i don't recall having a preference.

 

[Blackmorec]

From a logic point of view, there are 3 main criteria in play......the actual recording, the recovery of the entire musical signal and the presentation of that signal.

The exact same signal is going to sound different on different systems based on how that system presents the music.

Imagine 2 systems, one based on a Magico S1 and the second based on the M9s. They are never going to sound the same, no matter how perfect the signal they’re playing.

Add that to the fact that we rarely know what the original should sound like and you realise that the best you can hope for is to build a system that sounds natural and realistic to the listener.

There are 2 ways a system can sound better; extracting more of the original signal and improving its presentation. The performance of a system is strongly based on both.

Given that there are 3 main variables, only 2 of which are under the listener’s control you realise that by definition there are no absolutes in terms of sound quality from a listener’s point of view, so the term ‘absolute sound’ is already a logically flawed concept. What it is is an aspiration, a wish; but it can never be realised with today’s recording and playback technology.

Take a hypothetical system that presents an exact replica of the original event and logic tells you that such a system can never be improved on. Give that a little more thought and you’ll then conclude that logically, there’s also no such thing as a recording that‘s an exactly replica of the original event, so the whole goal of pursuing the ’absolute sound’ defined by the original performance is impossible to achieve. So what we’re left with are 2 goals: extracting the maximum information from the original recording and presenting it in the most pleasing way possible.

 

[Gregm]

From a logic point of view, there are 3 main criteria in play......the actual recording, the recovery of the entire musical signal and the presentation of that signal.

Agreed. Respectively, the recording, the (reproduction system) source, and the amp-speakers combo

Given that there are 3 main variables, only 2 of which are under the listener’s control you realise that by definition there are no absolutes in terms of sound quality from a listener’s point of view, so the term ‘absolute sound’ is already a logically flawed concept. What it is is an aspiration, a wish; but it can never be realised with today’s recording and playback technology.

Absolute sound: I wonder if it can ever be realised, regardless of technology. The original event comprises numerous elements making it a reality -- including the sound of course. So I really don't think that "absolute sound" defined as an exact replica of the musical event is a realistic or even plausible aspiration -- as you yourself note below.

Take a hypothetical system that presents an exact replica of the original event and logic tells you that such a system can never be improved on. Give that a little more thought and you’ll then conclude that logically, there’s also no such thing as a recording that‘s an exactly replica of the original event, so the whole goal of pursuing the ’absolute sound’ defined by the original performance is impossible to achieve.

Of course, I could be annoyingly persnickety and add, "exact replica, from which seat? What about the ambient temperature at the musical event? Oooops, it's a studio recording, so there was no one continuous musical event -- just bits and pieces..." and so on ad nauseam

So what we’re left with are 2 goals: extracting the maximum information from the original recording and presenting it in the most pleasing way possible.

Yes! Thank you.

From there on we can understand and explain the differences in individual perception, the preferences for one technology or the other, etc.
While I subscribe to "extract the maximum, present it (correctly ) in the most pleasing way..." I understand that, in pursuit of "pleasing" someone else may even eschew "all the information".
Whatever makes one's ears-brain combo tingle is fine with me...

 

[Gregadd]

of course can create the absolute sound. We just can't do it under the current construct.

 

[thedudeabides]

Unless you were present when the recording was made, how would you know?

 

[Gregadd]

Unless you were present when the recording was made, how would you know?

Or for that matter how would you remember? Or that some change was not made intentionally, or by malpractice, etc, etc...?

 

[Gregadd]

Of course if we accept the premise that the source is unknown then fidelity to the source is illogical..

 

[microstrip]

The answers to the OP question lie in the fragility of the stereo system and lack of standards for stereo recording and playback. Stereo can't and does not want to recreate a facsimile of the concert soundfield , at best it creates an enjoyable illusionary sound reproduction.

IMHO being an audiophile is not a natural condition of humans - we educate ourselves for this hobby, developing preferences.

 

[bonzo75]

.

IMHO being an audiophile is not a natural condition of humans - we educate ourselves for this hobby, developing preferences.

The concept of natural sound you debate about to understand is actually the sound that should be obvious to the untrained listener as well. It is the sound whether trained or untrained

 

[microstrip]

The concept of natural sound you debate about to understand is actually the sound that should be obvious to the untrained listener as well. It is the sound whether trained or untrained

The preferences of untrained listeners are very different from our preferences. Although I disagree on most views of Floyd Toole concerning the high-end I second his basic position concerning "natural" stereo sound reproduction. Without training stereo is extremely limited - it doesn't even create a soundfield, we must imagine it from micro-cues and our musical experience. It is why there is so much disagreement in the high-end.

 

[Gregadd]

I hope to deal with that word preference. Or as Don put it, 'subjective preference.'

 

[Gregadd]

The problem is objectives make conflicting arguments. They claim people like euphonic distortions. Yet they cling to a study which the less distortion they more subjects like it. It can't be both.

 

[PeterA]

The preferences of untrained listeners are very different from our preferences. Although I disagree on most views of Floyd Toole concerning the high-end I second his basic position concerning "natural" stereo sound reproduction. Without training stereo is extremely limited - it doesn't even create a soundfield, we must imagine it from micro-cues and our musical experience. It is why there is so much disagreement in the high-end.

Fransisco, you seem pretty confident that the preferences of untrained listeners is very different from our preferences. How do you know that? I have friends come over who appreciate well presented music and they have no reference beside real, live music. And they get it. They just don't break the sound down into parts the way you seem to want to do. They understand full well what sounding "natural" means. They don't read the books you do. Perhaps they are better for it.

I think one would find it difficult to argue that stereo does not create a soundfield after hearing @ddk 's large system. I don't think one needs any specialized training to hear what his system can do and appreciate the result. And I think the untrained listener will understand instantly the difference between that kind of presentation and the typical hifi presentation at many audioshows, dealerships, and private settings. All one needs is the opportunity to experience it.

 

[microstrip]

Fransisco, you seem pretty confident that the preferences of untrained listeners is very different from our preferences. How do you know that? I have friends come over who appreciate well presented music and they have no reference beside real, live music. And they get it. They just don't break the sound down into parts the way you seem to want to do. They understand full well what sounding "natural" means. They don't read the books you do. Perhaps they are better for it.

I think one would find it difficult to argue that stereo does not create a soundfield after hearing @ddk 's large system. I don't think one needs any specialized training to hear what his system can do and appreciate the result. And I think the untrained listener will understand instantly the difference between that kind of presentation and the typical hifi presentation at many audioshows, dealerships, and private settings. All one needs is the opportunity to experience it.

Peter,

I was addressing preferences of audiophiles enjoying high-end equipment versus general listeners.

IMHO when we debate preference in general we must consider it from a statistical perspective, considering a significant un-biased population of adequate size. Surely the group of my friends or yours do not have these characteristics. My belief is based on texts of audio scholars, such as F. Toole and the many references to other articles contained in his book, that carries an extensive bibliography on the subject and articles, such as interviews with speaker designers. I will avoid making unfriendly analytical comments on you friends.

Sound field has a well known meaning in physics of audio in terms of vectors - stereo does not have these characteristics - it us why you can't make a decent recording of a stereo playback. I have explained it several times before, even in a answer in your thread, you are surely free to use in your interesting divagations with a subjective meaning. Sorry, it is not what I am addressing.

As shown by Ron long time quest, audiophiles have several different objectives - each will drive a type of preference. But untrained listeners just want an enjoyable sound - then the question for designers becomes what makes sound enjoyable for most recordings, not just for golden age or ECM recordings.

We are a strongly biased generation, many listening mostly to the same music we got used to listen when we were a lot younger. Considering sound reproduction in stereo all these years count as training. We learn a lot about preference when we read how people appreciate stereo recording quality.

Do you think that everyone who listened to David Bionor's become an immediate "natural" believer?

 

[Gregadd]

Peter
Added to that what does trained mean?
Experienced
Educated
Indoctrinated
Influenced
Biased
Within any what school mod thought does it fall. Is listening enough or does it require formal training?

 

[the sound of Tao]

The preferences of untrained listeners are very different from our preferences. Although I disagree on most views of Floyd Toole concerning the high-end I second his basic position concerning "natural" stereo sound reproduction. Without training stereo is extremely limited - it doesn't even create a soundfield, we must imagine it from micro-cues and our musical experience. It is why there is so much disagreement in the high-end.

I’d suggest from the very moment we start perceiving we are trained listeners Francisco.

We are surrounded by a range of diverse natural sounds from the moment of our very first listening. We are shaped by the first voices and the tone in those voices. We are trained by the harmonics of both our human interaction of our culture and by our perceptions in our environment.

We appreciate certain qualities, relate the experience of soft to loud, harmonic structure and all the interrelated feelings that these things bring. The security created by the non-threatening sounds and the chaos caused by clashing fields of an urban sensory overload.

The sound of your environment trains you and the sound of typical environments has changed markedly. Contemporary life is overfilled with the chaos of diverse and competing sounds.

So the soundfield we may seek more so now may be simpler and more whole as a balance to the over sensation of our daily worlds. The rightness of a sound will relate to the needs of the time and our place in the cycle of our development. We awake from no sound to simple sounds, we open to more and more sounds, we seek new influences, new sounds, more complexity, then we take ourselves to the edge and realise the return to simplicity is then a natural conclusion as we turn to return to home.

We start with nothing, we atomise it to infinity, we seek to find the one thing and then it becomes as nothing. Night opens to dawn, then opens and becomes the full light of day then turns back towards the fading resolution of the sunset and into the void and simple empty silence of the night.

So then some points leads us to perceive the whole, and some then lead us to hear the parts. That for me is where the difference really lies. Some systems lead us to hear all the parts and some systems lead us more to hear the whole. So we are trained by our perceptions and that includes the nature of our systems yes.

You are trained by the nature of your Soundlabs and your Wilsons as well as the gear that drives them.

I have trained myself over the last few years through the simple lens of 2 way OB horns... moving away from the separating of sounds back towards the healing back into one and through that point of one and the other the inevitable merge back into no separation.

Training for me is a cycle, we start whole and simple, we separate and fragment and move more towards the parts, then when we have heard as much from the parts as we can we move back and merge into hearing the whole again. This for me is the different perceptual stances between sounds and music, so the parts and the whole. Complexity tends to lead us to the parts, simplicity to the whole. So our training is ceaseless but cyclical.

My timing I believe is good, as I approach the sunset I’m letting go of the realisation of the separation in things and merging back into the whole. My speakers are training me towards the music and away from the sonic field. We perhaps associate natural with our earliest experiences and seek to return to the related music of an undifferentiated wholeness.

 

[ddk]

The answers to the OP question lie in the fragility of the stereo system and lack of standards for stereo recording and playback. Stereo can't and does not want to recreate a facsimile of the concert soundfield , at best it creates an enjoyable illusionary sound reproduction.

There are definitely well documented recording techniques and technology and schools dedicated to this so there are standards. Recording is also an art form so the recording engineer and his experience are another standard.
I highly recommend that you sit in some recording and mastering sessions to understand how amazing and accurate good recordings are. Leaving aside large orchestral that could have some compression or need a large space to scale properly IME many small group music, both studio and venue recordings, live or otherwise can be extremely accurate and lifelike. I truly disagree with your premise that all recordings are false representations, IMO often it's a limitation of ones ability to reproduce the sound accurately and yes, naturally.

IMHO being an audiophile is not a natural condition of humans - we educate ourselves for this hobby, developing preferences.

It's possible that we have a very different definition of "audiophile" because I never heard of being an audiophile as a human condition ! If that's true then anyone with any interest educating themselves in that field is suffering from a human condition. I think it's actually the opposite, the attraction to music and sound is very organic and natural for most people I've come across and by extension getting interested in sound system.Why would preferences be taught, we're not robots? IME you develop preferences with experience and until fully exposed most people are unaware of their true preferences until exposed to it.

The preferences of untrained listeners are very different from our preferences. Although I disagree on most views of Floyd Toole concerning the high-end I second his basic position concerning "natural" stereo sound reproduction. Without training stereo is extremely limited - it doesn't even create a soundfield, we must imagine it from micro-cues and our musical experience. It is why there is so much disagreement in the high-end.

Please define your classification untrained and trained listeners, what are they trained in and trained by whom. I'm also wondering about who's included in the group when you mention "our preferences", with all the disagreement you mention we can't be all part of the same "preference" group.

Stereo is a term but a stereo system definitely creates a "sound field", not sure what's a soundfield!

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sound field

Definition of sound field

: a region in a material medium in which sound waves are being propagated

Peter,

I was addressing preferences of audiophiles enjoying high-end equipment versus general listeners.

IMHO when we debate preference in general we must consider it from a statistical perspective, considering a significant un-biased population of adequate size. Surely the group of my friends or yours do not have these characteristics. My belief is based on texts of audio scholars, such as F. Toole and the many references to other articles contained in his book, that carries an extensive bibliography on the subject and articles, such as interviews with speaker designers. I will avoid making unfriendly analytical comments on you friends.

Toole and Olive had their own definition of trained and untrained which doesn't jive everyone, I doubt there's a general acceptance of their definitions. Telling people what to listen for in their experiments to guarantee an outcome doesn't make them trained listeners.

There's always the question of your interpretation of Toole's book and his bibliography. Do you believe that between the 3 of us, you, Peter and I interpret it the same?

Sound field has a well known meaning in physics of audio in terms of vectors - stereo does not have these characteristics - it us why you can't make a decent recording of a stereo playback. I have explained it several times before, even in a answer in your thread, you are surely free to use in your interesting divagations with a subjective meaning. Sorry, it is not what I am addressing.

Reproduction of a stereo recording has a sound field by any related definition of the word!

https://www.acoustic-glossary.co.uk/sound-fields.htm

As shown by Ron long time quest, audiophiles have several different objectives - each will drive a type of preference. But untrained listeners just want an enjoyable sound - then the question for designers becomes what makes sound enjoyable for most recordings, not just for golden age or ECM recordings.

We are a strongly biased generation, many listening mostly to the same music we got used to listen when we were a lot younger. Considering sound reproduction in stereo all these years count as training. We learn a lot about preference when we read how people appreciate stereo recording quality.

The first flaw in your statement is the assumption an "audiophile" is trained. Second, if so that training has intrinsic value for the individual to come up with educated preferences. I have a problem with the concept of trained and untrained, it's derogatory and meaningless.

Do you think that everyone who listened to David Bionor's become an immediate "natural" believer?

Vladimir Lamm made me "natural" believer !

david