New Audio Review Term: Black Background

Al M. · May 21, 2021

microstrip said:
Fantastic. Tens of reviewers use the words, most of the industry uses it and you feel acomplished because you found that a couple of them disagree with it ...

You have seen very little. This discussion has been mostly on semantics, the fundamental aspects were mostly ignored. Do you have a better word that expresses the main idea that reviewers expressed with "black background" or you are just objecting to it?
Again "many people"? Where are they?

Funny, Francisco. You want me to come up with numbers, why don't you come up with yours? Who are the "tens of reviewers"? Well, that may be an easier part, but I would still like to see it in order to be convinced. But where is the proof for "most of the industry uses it"? That's quite the claim.

And even if that were true -- show me the numbers first -- that doesn't make the term any more right.

All of biosciences uses for one of the central processes in the field the term PCR, "polymerase chain reaction", but that is technically inaccurate. This exponential amplification of DNA molecules is not a chain reaction, since it constantly needs to be restarted over each one of tens of cycles of temperature variation, and thus is not self-propagating. Rather, it is an amplification reaction. The acronym for that, "polymerase amplification reaction", would even have been easier to pronounce: PAR (like "jar").

But the inventors gave it the technically wrong name to make it sound fancy and impressive, it stuck, and the rest is history.

The mere fact that a term is widely used does not, in itself, prove that it is correct.

rbbert · May 21, 2021

I think Myles was having a brain fart when he started this topic, because some reviewers in his audio mag (Ultimate Audio) were using the term with its classical meaning back in the late '90's, alternating it with "transparency" - both meaning a property that let's all the music come through.

PeterA · May 21, 2021

microstrip said:
Wrong guess, Peter, it was introduced much before - it was even used in an old Forsell turntable review. Anyway Myles was not successful in his crusade - ten years later the words are being used more than ever by the high-end community.

Last time I heard from Myles I was a bit disappointed - he moved from conrad johnson to Goldmund Telos and Mimesis solid state, keeping the Magico's. Conrad johnson always had a special place in my audiophile life - and Lew Johnson is really a nice guy. He even persuaded me to buy my first Wilson Audio speakers!

You have a point on the people objecting to it. Fortunately there were always plenty of debates on the high-end, there was always a diversity of opinions, people agreed and disagreed a lot. How else could we have had the interesting debates in each monthly issue of magazines such as The Absolute Sound?

I often guess incorrectly Micro. That’s why I say it was a guess. But then I always know the professor will pounce from his perch to preach publicly where and when I make my mistakes.

No need to be disappointed in Myles. He’s doing just fine and enjoys his music tremendously. He seems quite happy.

PeterA · May 21, 2021

microstrip said:
Fantastic. Tens of reviewers use the words, most of the industry uses it and you feel acomplished because you found that a couple of them disagree with it ...

You have seen very little. This discussion has been mostly on semantics, the fundamental aspects were mostly ignored. Do you have a better word that expresses the main idea that reviewers expressed with "black background" or you are just objecting to it?
Again "many people"? Where are they?

An alternative is quite simple: low noise. This is basically what you claim it means. I agree with the point Myles makes. Why invent another term that basically says the same thing but is much more ambiguous?

microstrip · May 22, 2021

Al M. said:
Funny, Francisco. You want me to come up with numbers, why don't you come up with yours? Who are the "tens of reviewers"? Well, that may be an easier part, but I would still like to see it in order to be convinced. But where is the proof for "most of the industry uses it"? That's quite the claim.

And even if that were true -- show me the numbers first -- that doesn't make the term any more right.

All of biosciences uses for one of the central processes in the field the term PCR, "polymerase chain reaction", but that is technically inaccurate. This exponential amplification of DNA is not a chain reaction, since it constantly needs to be restarted over each one of tens of cycles of temperature variation, and thus is not self-propagating. Rather, it is an amplification reaction. The acronym for that, "polymerase amplification reaction", would even have been easier to pronounce: PAR (like "jar").

But the inventors gave it the technically wrong name to make it sound fancy, it stuck, and the rest is history.

The mere fact that a term is widely used does not, in itself, prove that it is correct.

Well, I could easily list the many people who use the "black background" - a few minutes with the advanced google search - but it is an useless point. Most of our readers read and respect magazines, reviewers and audio sites and know about the frequent use of it. Fortunately most of our members are not in a crusade against the high-end industry.

I was not aware that your aim was just the "correctness" of the nomenclature. My only point is that due to frequent use the words now have meaning in the high-end and it is different from what a few people here want to associate with it.

And by no way I mix science with high-end nomenclature. Sometimes I try yo use it just to explain the basic facts of stereo sound reproduction, but just a very few seem interested in such matters.

microstrip · May 22, 2021

PeterA said:
An alternative is quite simple: low noise. This is basically what you claim it means. I agree with the point Myles makes. Why invent another term that basically says the same thing but is much more ambiguous?

Apologies for not being able to explain the claims of all the people who use the words "black background" in a subjective use - if you still think that it means "low noise" we miserably failed.

Low noise is an objective concept in audio - it can be measured, it gives us a number and a spectra. If you are happy with it and do not need anything else in this hobby, we in different reigns.

microstrip · May 22, 2021

PeterA said:
(...) No need to be disappointed in Myles. He’s doing just fine and enjoys his music tremendously. He seems quite happy.

He should be, the Goldmunds are excellent sounding electronics. But I am a tube appassionato and knowing he owned conrad johnson made me happy.

bonzo75 · May 22, 2021

I tried to YouTube black background audio. Up came something about tv. In tv black backgrounds are created to make other colors stand out, else the background color will mix in. Someone probably got over creative and tried to pull it in to audiophile vocab, to show he was lowering noise floor.

Either way, I don't see why this, toe in, and pointed imaging has to be discussed every alternate thread.

KeithR · May 22, 2021

bonzo75 said:
I tried to YouTube black background audio. Up came something about tv. In tv black backgrounds are created to make other colors stand out, else the background color will mix in. Someone probably got over creative and tried to pull it in to audiophile vocab, to show he was lowering noise floor.

Either way, I don't see why this, toe in, and pointed imaging has to be discussed every alternate thread.

Amen, brother. People just talking in circles.

Atmasphere · May 24, 2021

PeterA said:
An alternative is quite simple: low noise. This is basically what you claim it means. I agree with the point Myles makes. Why invent another term that basically says the same thing but is much more ambiguous?

Its a little more than that! Its also a matter of what composes the noise floor. If its intermodulations and inharmonic material in addition to simple noise, even though its just as quiet on the bench, the ear will perceive it as less 'black'. This is partially due to the ear's masking principle, which has an interesting exception- that of 'wind' noise. This is speculation on my part as to the 'why' of this but if its a wind noise, we can hear into a noise floor like that. I've heard as much as 20dB which I doubt; I think 10dB is more likely.

If the electronics has issues with how its grounded, how its feedback loops are designed and so on, it can become prone to noise other than just thermionic emission and the like- the intermodulations and inharmonic stuff I just mentioned. When the latter are present, the ear can't penetrate that noise floor the way it can if its simple noise.

Its for this reason that I find 'black background' to be a useful means of expressing this concept.

Atmasphere · May 24, 2021

the sound of Tao said:
Note to self... apparently with class d no-one can hear you scream either

?? Class D is really variable- some is excellent and some is terrible, just like traditional solid state and tube circuits. When its excellent, its as good as anything else out there.

Al M. · May 24, 2021

Redirect from another thread:

Morricab said:

Black background doesn’t mean absence of ambient information!! It never has...at least until this thread in my experience....Sheesh

My reply:

Black background appears to mean that there is nothing between notes, thus no ambience either. Yet if there is ambience as a constant background, then how can the background be "black" at the same time? It seems a contradiction in terms.

Atmasphere · May 24, 2021

Al M. said:
Black background appears to mean that there is nothing between notes, thus no ambience either. Yet if there is ambience as a constant background, then how can the background be "black" at the same time? It seems a contradiction in terms.

Its not- and this isn't the meaning I would attach either! Again:

Atmasphere said:
Its a little more than that! {I was relying to one who suggested it was merely and absence of noise] Its also a matter of what composes the noise floor. If its intermodulations and inharmonic material in addition to simple noise, even though its just as quiet on the bench, the ear will perceive it as less 'black'. This is partially due to the ear's masking principle, which has an interesting exception- that of 'wind' noise. This is speculation on my part as to the 'why' of this but if its a wind noise, we can hear into a noise floor like that. I've heard as much as 20dB which I doubt; I think 10dB is more likely.

If the electronics has issues with how its grounded, how its feedback loops are designed and so on, it can become prone to noise other than just thermionic emission and the like- the intermodulations and inharmonic stuff I just mentioned. When the latter are present, the ear can't penetrate that noise floor the way it can if its simple noise.

Its for this reason that I find 'black background' to be a useful means of expressing this concept.

Emphasis added.

the sound of Tao · May 24, 2021

Atmasphere said:
?? Class D is really variable- some is excellent and some is terrible, just like traditional solid state and tube circuits. When its excellent, its as good as anything else out there.

There’s something in the DNA of the type that hasn’t gelled for me but I feel that preferences aren’t universal. Ralph I’m hoping you make one that I would find excellent as well.

Atmasphere · May 24, 2021

the sound of Tao said:
There’s something in the DNA of the type that hasn’t gelled for me but I feel that preferences aren’t universal. Ralph I’m hoping you make one that I would find excellent as well.

With any amp its all about what distortion it makes and what it does not. Tubes tend to be smoother because the lower ordered harmonics they make mask the presence of the higher orders. This allows them to sound smooth even though they have more higher ordered content than most solid state amps. Put another way the distortion signature may well be more important than how much is made. FWIW you can get a class D to make the same sort of distortion signature as a tube amp, but at a lower overall level. So it can sound just as smooth but more revealing.

the sound of Tao · May 24, 2021

For each of us Ralph the truth awaits in different things. For me it’s in the listening to music and as I said to some mates recently the notion of connecting with musical truth. Semantic testing arguments aside I’m comfortable in the notion of each recognising their own rightness.

Everything I invest in this now is in the experience of getting deeper in the music. That is my goal. Fidelity isn’t a singular universal concept so we all apply it as it best fits our perceptions and values. I’m hoping you create a class d amp that could do that as well. But in the end it’s your call on what it should be as designer.

the sound of Tao · May 24, 2021

The blackness thing... in design also the void is the value that makes the signal more overt. Much like black value in a visual image amplifies chromatic intensity.

So the question for me of rightness in the absoluteness of void in a recording of music does come back to context of the music and recording.

If the recording of the music is trying to relate to a lived experience then most performance venues inside and outside don’t have absolute silence at any point. The silences are filled by some kind of atmosphere. So the presence of any absolute silence in that replay will just not feel as natural or as fluidly connected to a live experience. So in recall there will be a gap in the thread of expectation in experience.

If a piece of music is meant to be completely synthesised and not meant to reflect a traditional human experience of hearing it while being in a physical space then the presence of periods of absolute blackness may add to the expansiveness of the experience.

In a recording of John Cage’s 4’33” that might present as a very clear conceptual creative choice from the artist.

So for me it all just kind of comes back to whether in the aim for the music it’s intention is to be essentially in synthesis or in the natural.

rbbert · May 24, 2021

the sound of Tao said:
...So for me it all just kind of comes back to whether in the aim for the music it’s intention is to be essentially in synthesis or in the natural.

I can't even guess what this sentence is supposed to mean?

Solypsa · May 24, 2021

If a *good* recording is made in a venue with ambient noise it will be present to a great degree in the recording. This is not *made* by the gear. I am inclined towards @Atmasphere: in the idea of what types of noise and distortion make up the noise floor and how well the gear reproduces low-level information.

Solypsa · May 24, 2021

Atmasphere said:
FWIW you can get a class D to make the same sort of distortion signature as a tube amp, but at a lower overall level. So it can sound just as smooth but more revealing.

This reminds me of the late Mr. TdeP. He was noted as saying he could make tube and / or solid state sound the 'same' and chose between them as he saw fit.

New Audio Review Term: Black Background

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