What does the source sound like...

[microstrip]

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.

The extreme difference between recording techniques and its results is the real proof that there is no real stereo standard. Many methods of recording and mastering, some better than others.

Never said that "all recordings are false representations". Said they are illusionary representations.

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.

We have to train because stereo is not a natural process and has spatial limitations. In real life sound does not come from two points, with the help of boundaries reflection.

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.

We can train ourselves - see for example how Peter describes his real music experiences. We can have mentors that tell us what to listen. And yes, for completness I could have written our different preferences, it was evident for me.

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

I do not use Webster (or literature dictionaries , BTW) to define technical terms. As I have explained before the sound field is an intensity and a vector, not the region, you missed the real point. Anyway thanks for checking my typos.

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?

I am almost sure that we will interpret the same way, the book is extremely technical and factual. We will probably disagree a lot on many aspects, F. Toole warns us in in the introduction. We have more people referring to aspects of the book in WBF and we had very interesting posts on it.

BTW, Olive training is very specific and different from audiophile training, please do not mix. Toole writtings are not Olive writiings.

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

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.

Sorry, audio scholars use the word all the time and no one consider it derogatory and meaningless. Anyway this is an hobby ...

Vladimir Lamm made me "natural" believer !

david

Well, it seems I became a "natural" keeper of his amplifiers!

 

[microstrip]

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.

Very true, dear the sound of Tao. Our life is a never ending training, in a poetic sense. But in technical audio literature addressing stereo the education got from listening to natural sources coming from real life that starts even before we are born is not called training, usually they reserve the word for learning to listen from sound reproduction sources.

And so comes the reference to trained and untrained listeners.

 

[Solypsa]

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.

Thanks for the personal and beautiful post.

 

[Robh3606]

This is the type of listener training that Toole and Sean are talking about. If you never tried it you should, It's eye opening. It has no bearing on "life" training listening to your stereo.

The idea that you have to be trained to hear stereo makes no sense to me. So someone who has never heard a stereo in an untrained listener. Anyone who has is a trained listener? Trained in what??

Harman How to Listen

A blog for users of the listener training software application "How to Listen."

harmanhowtolisten.blogspot.com

 

[ddk]

The extreme difference between recording techniques and its results is the real proof that there is no real stereo standard. Many methods of recording and mastering, some better than others.

There are established processes and just because some people or methods are better than others doesn't mean that there are no standards. I'm talking about making recordings, production not book knowledge and theory. Without standards you have no quality product!

Never said that "all recordings are false representations". Said they are illusionary representations.

Same difference, semantics.

We have to train because stereo is not a natural process and has spatial limitations. In real life sound does not come from two points, with the help of boundaries reflection.

Stereo sound is part of real life! Hearing is a natural process, however sound is presented and irrespective of source.

We can train ourselves - see for example how Peter describes his real music experiences. We can have mentors that tell us what to listen. And yes, for completness I could have written our different preferences, it was evident for me.

I do not use Webster (or literature dictionaries , BTW) to define technical terms. As I have explained before the sound field is an intensity and a vector, not the region, you missed the real point. Anyway thanks for checking my typos.

This is Acoustic Glossary, is your definition made up by you? Intensity and vector of what if not sound waves?

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

BTW, Olive training is very specific and different from audiophile training, please do not mix. Toole writtings are not Olive writiings.

I was talking about the their single speaker videos, they were both involved in the so called training.

Sorry, audio scholars use the word all the time and no one consider it derogatory and meaningless. Anyway this is an hobby ...

They would!

Well, it seems I became a "natural" keeper of his amplifiers!

LOL!

david

 

[ddk]

This is the type of listener training that Toole and Sean are talking about. If you never tried it you should, It's eye opening. It has no bearing on "life" training listening to your stereo.

The idea that you have to be trained to hear stereo makes no sense to me. So someone who has never heard a stereo in an untrained listener. Anyone who has is a trained listener? Trained in what??

Harman How to Listen

A blog for users of the listener training software application "How to Listen."

harmanhowtolisten.blogspot.com

Yes, it's about training guinea pigs for a lab experiment. But listening to Olive the training was more about a predetermined outcome to support his hypothesis, not disprove it.

david

 

[Robh3606]

Yes, it's about training guinea pigs for a lab experiment. But listening to Olive the training was more about a predetermined outcome to support his hypothesis, not disprove it.

david

Hello David

Have you tried it?? If you have I don't understand why you would say it was set-up to prove a hypothesis. It teaches you how to evaluate speakers and determine areas where they are lacking. It also clearly shows you what your individual capabilities are. I found it fascinating and fun to play with.

How to Listen: A Course on How to Critically Evaluate the Quality of Recorded and Reproduced Sound

Next month, I will be giving a one day course on How to Listen at the 2011 ALMA Winter Symposium in Las Vegas,held Jan. 4th and 5th, just...

seanolive.blogspot.com

Rob

 

[ddk]

Hello David

Have you tried it?? If you have I don't understand why you would say it was set-up to prove a hypothesis. It teaches you how to evaluate speakers and determine areas where they are lacking. It also clearly shows you what your individual capabilities are. I found it fascinating and fun to play with.

How to Listen: A Course on How to Critically Evaluate the Quality of Recorded and Reproduced Sound

Next month, I will be giving a one day course on How to Listen at the 2011 ALMA Winter Symposium in Las Vegas,held Jan. 4th and 5th, just...

seanolive.blogspot.com

Rob

Hi Rob,

I did a few years ago when we had a lot of discussions on their listening sessions. At the time I watched as many videos of the actual tests and Olive's monologues as I could find, that's what I base my conclusion on. It's the test that I find rigged and biased.

david

 

[the sound of Tao]

Very true, dear the sound of Tao. Our life is a never ending training, in a poetic sense. But in technical audio literature addressing stereo the education got from listening to natural sources coming from real life that starts even before we are born is not called training, usually they reserve the word for learning to listen from sound reproduction sources.

And so comes the reference to trained and untrained listeners.

At this point the notion that the experience of recorded sound is disconnected from any other sound does tend to fall into a heap for me. The distinction on trained and untrained I don’t find reflective of the boundaries of the actual listening experience Francisco.

Surely it’s not possible to just separate out perception of stereo reproduced sound from our perception of all other sound since it comes directly out of the interrelated experiences of hearing sounds in the actual and the live. The fact that the sound appears from specific points doesn’t rule out all the things we are bound in appreciating. In terms of phenomenology the perception of all sounds is always shaped by all we have heard before as well as how and what we are experiencing now and also then shaped by what we expect to hear next.

Awareness is constantly shaping us and perception of any sound is related to the context of all our previous listening perceptions and not just boxed out into pre and post our listening to specifically stereo recorded sound. I’d suggest there simply is no turn on and turn off point of separation from the experience in sounds in a recreated process as opposed to all our experience of any other sound that we meet in any environment.

Also I am very unsure how variously conscious people are in this understanding of our perception at any rate. I’m unsure we are navigating or being driven and every choice we make takes us to a different avenue. So training happens before as well as during and continues after. The journey involves all the various bits of our preambling. Our training is as unique to us and can’t be determined within a simple group assessment.

I find the various shaping of our perspectives in this hobby to be among perhaps the least prescribed or understood simply because of their vast complexity. Anything that sees us as being placed then in any singular box as trained or untrained is fraught with a misunderstood frame set.

You will shape your experience (and it shape you as a feedback) very differently to my experience will do for me even if we sat side by side listening to the very same thing. So will your system. So will your life environment. So will your fundamental patterns of being. So will your choice of music. So will your mindset, expectation and your moods. So will your phase in life and so on. Out of this some will become more conscious, some not so much so whether the training is understood or not can also alter how it acts on us.

I’d put it that simply this differentiation between trained and untrained is insufficient to cover the process and the range of experiences open to all and any and is not at all a real understanding of how things are within this pursuit.

The two point source thing is hardly a summation of the experience of listening to anything in truth. It doesn’t cover the extraordinary range of information that is actually being captured and interpreted. This is not mapped yet let alone detailed.

The mind is constantly correlating the past, the present and our projections of future. It is not a linear temporal process. It is then simultaneously breaking things into parts and then mapping for the whole. It is projecting back before the start and then leading us forwards. This is happening for us based upon all the inputs our different lives then feed us. The point before any other point, the point where we are pointed now and the point we may end pointing towards are all factors in where we perceive things at all or any points. The two points we are listening two serve like any pole, an aspect of orientation that creates just another perspective as part of our perception of that whole.

 

[bonzo75]

Hi Rob,

I did a few years ago when we had a lot of discussions on their listening sessions. At the time I watched as many videos of the actual tests and Olive's monologues as I could find, that's what I base my conclusion on. It's the test that I find rigged and biased.

david

That test is a joke. Amir had also posted these Harman tests they were hilarious and he kept giving himself marks on them.

 

[ddk]

That test is a joke. Amir had also posted these Harman tests they were hilarious and he kept giving himself marks on them.

That's how I saw them.

david

 

[bonzo75]

I can accept trained and untrained, trained for me is someone who has exposure to varied gear, knows how and what to look for. He has got past the stage of being awed by looks or price, does not read only the thread of the component he wants to buy, and while listening does not look for audiophile terms he has read about.

For me if someone buys the stereotypical hifi show/magazine gear of Wilson, Magico, dCS, and/or listens to audiophile music to evaluate, I consider them untrained. Actually in a more dangerous territory than untrained, because at this stage they are harming themselves by picking up bad gear, something an untrained person wouldn't do. An untrained person would more naturally pick up nice sound because of lack of biases. An untrained person wouldn't spend time defending his purchase despite the sound, he is more willing to accept the mistake as he is considers himself untrained

 

[Robh3606]

I can accept trained and untrained, trained for me is someone who has exposure to varied gear, knows how and what to look for. He has got past the stage of being awed by looks or price, does not read only the thread of the component he wants to buy, and while listening does not look for audiophile terms he has read about.

For me if someone buys the stereotypical hifi show/magazine gear of Wilson, Magico, dCS, and/or listens to audiophile music to evaluate, I consider them untrained. Actually in a more dangerous territory than untrained, because at this stage they are harming themselves by picking up bad gear, something an untrained person wouldn't do. An untrained person would more naturally pick up nice sound because of lack of biases. An untrained person wouldn't spend time defending his purchase despite the sound, he is more willing to accept the mistake as he is considers himself untrained

I don't know about that. I would think an untrained/inexperienced person would be more likely to make the mistake of purchasing a pair of speakers based on showroom sound and not understand why they don't sound the same in his room.

How do you define trained vs untrained. Is it knowledge based?

Experience doesn't count for much if you don't understand how things really work in the real world. Another example would be speaker placement. Obviously a trained person would do a better job and again that points to the basic knowledge needed to get the most out of your gear.

I really think we need to clearly define or at least clarify trained vs untrained.

Rob

 

[Gregadd]

Stereo is an illusion. If you listen to binaural sound you will realize this.
There is no reason for a listener to be trained. If you are familiar with live music you already have the memory necessary to evaluate reproduced music. The term trained listeners is a misnomer. Ala Sean Olive these are trained equipment evaluators. There job is to spot qualitys they believe make for superior equipment.
A music listener should enjoy music not evaluate equipment.
The existence of standard can and does exist even it is frequently breached.

 

[PeterA]

I don't know about that. I would think an untrained/inexperienced person would be more likely to make the mistake of purchasing a pair of speakers based on showroom sound and not understand why they don't sound the same in his room.

How do you define trained vs untrained. Is it knowledge based?



I really think we need to clearly define or at least clarify trained vs untrained.

Rob

Untrained listeners versus “us” is some thing that Francisco brought up in post number 13. I don’t see what it has to do with the original post and Greg’s questions. Fransisco seems to think “us” are trained listeners I suppose because we’re audiophiles. He introduced the terms so he should define them but I don’t see the relevancy to the OP or to anything else.

 

[bonzo75]

Untrained listeners versus “us” is some thing that Francisco brought up in post number 13. I don’t see what it has to do with the original post and Greg’s questions. Fransisco seems to think “us” are trained listeners I suppose because we’re audiophiles. He introduced the terms so he should define them but I don’t see the relevancy to the OP or to anything else.

i agree with him we are trained. Whatever the listening practices, all of us try to follow some. For example, if you learned from David what to listen for, or not to listen for, or to listen for something with toes in or out, that is training

 

[microstrip]

At this point the notion that the experience of recorded sound is disconnected from any other sound does tend to fall into a heap for me. The distinction on trained and untrained I don’t find reflective of the boundaries of the actual listening experience Francisco.

No one tells that the experience is disconnected.

Surely it’s not possible to just separate out perception of stereo reproduced sound from our perception of all other sound since it comes directly out of the interrelated experiences of hearing sounds in the actual and the live. The fact that the sound appears from specific points doesn’t rule out all the things we are bound in appreciating. In terms of phenomenology the perception of all sounds is always shaped by all we have heard before as well as how and what we are experiencing now and also then shaped by what we expect to hear next.

Awareness is constantly shaping us and perception of any sound is related to the context of all our previous listening perceptions and not just boxed out into pre and post our listening to specifically stereo recorded sound. I’d suggest there simply is no turn on and turn off point of separation from the experience in sounds in a recreated process as opposed to all our experience of any other sound that we meet in any environment.

Also I am very unsure how variously conscious people are in this understanding of our perception at any rate. I’m unsure we are navigating or being driven and every choice we make takes us to a different avenue. So training happens before as well as during and continues after. The journey involves all the various bits of our preambling. Our training is as unique to us and can’t be determined within a simple group assessment.

I find the various shaping of our perspectives in this hobby to be among perhaps the least prescribed or understood simply because of their vast complexity. Anything that sees us as being placed then in any singular box as trained or untrained is fraught with a misunderstood frame set.

You will shape your experience (and it shape you as a feedback) very differently to my experience will do for me even if we sat side by side listening to the very same thing. So will your system. So will your life environment. So will your fundamental patterns of being. So will your choice of music. So will your mindset, expectation and your moods. So will your phase in life and so on. Out of this some will become more conscious, some not so much so whether the training is understood or not can also alter how it acts on us.

I’d put it that simply this differentiation between trained and untrained is insufficient to cover the process and the range of experiences open to all and any and is not at all a real understanding of how things are within this pursuit.

Ok, it is your opinion on the analytical studies of many audio scholars. Probably because I am not able to adequately summarize a few pages in a five lines.

The two point source thing is hardly a summation of the experience of listening to anything in truth. It doesn’t cover the extraordinary range of information that is actually being captured and interpreted. This is not mapped yet let alone detailed.

The mind is constantly correlating the past, the present and our projections of future. It is not a linear temporal process. It is then simultaneously breaking things into parts and then mapping for the whole. It is projecting back before the start and then leading us forwards. This is happening for us based upon all the inputs our different lives then feed us. The point before any other point, the point where we are pointed now and the point we may end pointing towards are all factors in where we perceive things at all or any points. The two points we are listening two serve like any pole, an aspect of orientation that creates just another perspective as part of our perception of that whole.

Again , stereo is a two channel format - it is why we refer to two point source. At one moment there are only two channels of information in the audio band , with amplitude and phase. Nothing similar exists in nature unless we listen to the world in the middle of a tunnel. You can't recreate a sound field with the characteristics of real sound. Sorry it is impossible to address perception ignoring the physics of sound..

 

[microstrip]

I can accept trained and untrained, trained for me is someone who has exposure to varied gear, knows how and what to look for. He has got past the stage of being awed by looks or price, does not read only the thread of the component he wants to buy, and while listening does not look for audiophile terms he has read about.

For me if someone buys the stereotypical hifi show/magazine gear of Wilson, Magico, dCS, and/or listens to audiophile music to evaluate, I consider them untrained. Actually in a more dangerous territory than untrained, because at this stage they are harming themselves by picking up bad gear, something an untrained person wouldn't do. An untrained person would more naturally pick up nice sound because of lack of biases. An untrained person wouldn't spend time defending his purchase despite the sound, he is more willing to accept the mistake as he is considers himself untrained

IMHO it can show as an arrogant opinion - considering that other people training is wrong and poor and ours is the good one.

I respect people preferences and training and appreciate understanding and debating it. Sometimes we get enthusiasm defending our preferences, but no way I can think that my preferences are "better". My division between trained and untrained listener is simply analysis methodology, not a ranking of listeners or audiophiles. I regret it is being considered as such.

 

[the sound of Tao]

I would simply submit that stereo is not a separate ‘special’ category and it is sound and no more and that all who can listen are very experienced in it... that we are all trained by our experience and I would also suggest that there is also actually a limited understanding of how it all works among all (including us experienced audiophiles)... even the audio scholars who can analyse stuff are just punters poking around on the edges of commanding the reality of consciousness. Many things aren’t fully known, that is fine and perhaps letting go of what it is exactly is what it needs to be.

 

[Gregadd]

While stereo is an illusion it a pretty darn good one. There are many illusions in life. The question is how much detail is required to perfect that illusion. The detail Gary's depending on the individual and the object of recreation. It does vary for individuals. The details necessary for me, may not do it for others. That is the true definition of preference.
This is of course at odds with the notion that preference an audiophile affinity for euphonic distortion.