Analog Apologist

Every time I read one of these threads (cables, power cords, speaker technology, DRC, or analog/digital), I'm reminded of an old story.

When the local elder statesman was asked his position about a specific political situation going on in his home town, he responded: "Well, some of my friends are for it and some of my friends are against it. And I'm for my friends!"

I have a good friend who gave me advice (which I ignored) on this hobby a long time ago and it is finally, for me, the direction I have taken. He stated: "The very, very best home audio system is a miserable excuse for reproducing the original event. While some do better than others and on occasion can suspend disbelief, all fall far short."

I attend a lot of live music events and there has NEVER been an audio system that comes close (for me) to disproving his statement. His follow on position was: "Since you can't reproduce the original event, create your own".

What he meant by that was to create in your home a system that can provide musical enjoyment for you. How we get there is our choice. Surround; 2 channel; 3 channel; analog; digital. The beauty of this approach is that there can actually be an end game. That is, you can actually end up with a system you truly enjoy.

And while it may be fun to try to re-create the original event, there is no end game, and it can be incredibly expensive and on occasion frustrating. I went that direction for a very long time and finally realized the futility of it all.

Gregadd said:

it would be naive to suggest that there is no monkeying around in the recording studio. That suggests there is no standard. Consequently that makes it even more subjective. I should then buy myself an equalizer and shape the music close to real as possible.

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There is tons of monkeying around in the studio, but that only makes it "subjective" if you're willing to accept built-in colorations in your system when the recording is exemplary. I'm not, so the goal is still reproduction of the recording. You should buy yourself an equalizer, but I wouldn't recommend trying to shape the music to some personal vision of "real." That is a phantom you'll never touch and will probably lead you to over-eq and make matters worse. EQ is, however, extremely useful for calming bright masters, adding bottom to thin ones, correcting over-zealous bass, etc. You'll never be able to make it sound "analog," though. No eq I'm aware of will add inner groove distortion, crosstalk, wow and flutter....

P

audioguy said:

I have a good friend who gave me advice (which I ignored) on this hobby a long time ago and it is finally, for me, the direction I have taken. He stated: "The very, very best home audio system is a miserable excuse for reproducing the original event. While some do better than others and on occasion can suspend disbelief, all fall far short."

I attend a lot of live music events and there has NEVER been an audio system that comes close (for me) to disproving his statement. His follow on position was: "Since you can't reproduce the original event, create your own".

What he meant by that was to create in your home a system that can provide musical enjoyment for you. How we get there is our choice. Surround; 2 channel; 3 channel; analog; digital. The beauty of this approach is that there can actually be an end game. That is, you can actually end up with a system you truly enjoy.

And while it may be fun to try to re-create the original event, there is no end game, and it can be incredibly expensive and on occasion frustrating. I went that direction for a very long time and finally realized the futility of it all.

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The flaw in your friend's logic is that he seems to believe that the original event is the live performance. It's not; it is the recording. This is all your audio system has to work with. It is all that it can re-produce. If you like analogue better, if you enjoy its unique sound in your home and it brings you listening pleasure, good for you. If you say it is a more accurate, more natural, more realistic, even a more "musical" reproduction of the "original event," "one of these threads" is likely to follow, not because you're not entitled to your own opinion, but because, as they say, you're not entitled to your own facts.

P

Phelonious Ponk said:

The flaw in your friend's logic is that he seems to believe that the original event is the live performance. It's not; it is the recording.

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I guess we get to disagree!

Now who's being naive. All recordings are colored. But all equipment is not. Vinyl is colored but digital is not. Unlike Albert I don't see it as digital bad-vinyl good. Both come up short. Vinyl creates an element necessary to Albert's illusion that digital does not. A scientifc test is not necessary for that. I 'm not threatened if some scientist wants to experiment with that. Albert of course need only vote with his wallet.

Ron Party said:

^ ^

All subjective. Not one single attempt to cite any evidence to support this position.

Analog and digital are storage mediums. How the ear works, which can be described as digital as well as analog (it really is a matter of semantics, as our resident expert Kal has already stated), is a classic Audiophile red herring. It is irrelevant. No one is his/her right mind would state that VHS (with its glorious 240 lines of resolution) is better than Blu Ray because VHS is analog.

Now the corollary also bears examination. No one is his/her right mind would state that MP3 @ 64 kbs is better than R2R because it is digital. The lesson here is, of course, that it is the capability of the medium itself that must be examined.

As such, if one wants to extol a medium's superiority, and not just talk about the mastering, then that person should offer more than anecdotal evidence.

To that end, re-read Dr. Olive's post. While he finds analog unlistenable, another subjective opinion, he also offers real science (as does Phelonious Ponk), i.e., a list of some (but not even all) of the ways that the digital has more capability than analog as a medium.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yada, yada, yada....every year it's a new story as to why the last digital measurement didn't pick up the issues reviewer's complained about. Let's see, first it was distortion, then it was the mikes, then it was filters, then it was jitter, etc. etc. . Let's see now we're doing away with the filters and doing all the processing in the software domain. And I bet those measurements are even better too. Whats the next excuse for this perfect medium?

Phelonious Ponk said:

There is tons of monkeying around in the studio, but that only makes it "subjective" if you're willing to accept built-in colorations in your system when the recording is exemplary. I'm not, so the goal is still reproduction of the recording. You should buy yourself an equalizer, but I wouldn't recommend trying to shape the music to some personal vision of "real." That is a phantom you'll never touch and will probably lead you to over-eq and make matters worse. EQ is, however, extremely useful for calming bright masters, adding bottom to thin ones, correcting over-zealous bass, etc. You'll never be able to make it sound "analog," though. No eq I'm aware of will add inner groove distortion, crosstalk, wow and flutter....


P

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I'm curious. Since you keep tossing around your studio experience, how about giving us some examples of recordings you've produced/recorded/mastered. Inquiring minds want to know.

Wow. Fireworks. And I thought the Fourth of July was yesterday.

Pushing, shoving and name calling will commence at 3 oclock on the playground.

Debate is good gents as long as we keep it polite

Hi

It is important to remind ourselves of what we are trying to accomplish. We are trying to reproduce music in a way that mimic as closely as possible a similar real event.
We have some means at our disposal.
The first was analog. That is what science of the time permitted.
The other one is digital. That is what now Science can provide us.

They are different. That , at least would garner some agreement. The question becomes then .. Which one of these two mimics more closely what we take for "real Live" music?

On the very surface of it. Both can reproduce music rather well. Now we begin to have the objections. It is difficult to not admit that the better digital (not mp3 , not lossy compressions) measure better than the best analog. Once this admission made most analog fan will retort, rightly IMHO, that measurements do not tell the whole story. I will pause an instant and ask the following : What, do you think measure better, R2R or LP (any LP , any TT from the lowly Rega to the Rockport Sirius... ???) a middle of the road R2R such as Technics well modified most likely Of course it is the R2R .. Which one sounds better R2R or LP, given equal treatment i-e EQ mastering , etc ? mmmhhh? R2R, of course .. Why? Because it is a higher performing medium also known as one measuring better .. So we must admit that measurement do tell some story, often a good part of it ...

Now let's turn to digital vs analog... I am not affirming that digital always sound better than analog, they most often sound different . I am suggesting that in many instances the copy of analog medium via digital means is often indistinguishable from the original. This admission has come from well informed analog-heads .. That would suggest the medium is quite transparent wouldn't it... I am ready to surmise that if the knowledge is removed many opinions would change .. Digital would become less "sterile" ... I am even willing to trick many and add what any noise which makes the experience "organic" ... I am sure many analog-loving would be surprised .. I know by then that stress would be invoked or even treachery but that is what we are dealing at the end .. We are dealing with the lack of objectivity of our observations ...Now let's move toward pure digital productions .. Why wouldn't they be good , very good even superior ?
Now about a few myths that need to be debunked. This is not the place to explain the digital process. Yet most graphical analogies of what is going on in digital show us a graph with a sine and samples taken of that sine. Intuitively we can see that more samples approximate the shape of the waveform .. whereas only two samples don't ... Actually if the two samples are taken at a frequency that is twice the highest frequency in the signal .. these sole two samples .. perfectly contain all information pertaining to this signal... the picture do not do justice to what is going on ... So digital does not have that much "gap" ( We could go on on sampling frequencies, etc but that is not the place ...)

One last thing ... I don't think CD is superior to the best analogue. I believe. however that the best digital is superior to the best analog. I read some years ago that when the LP was introduced some , believe the 78 to be its superior too ... The debate will goo on. Technology will stop for no one and most people , audiophiles included shall embrace the better medium.. We know which one I mean by that ...

mep said:

The digital devils are aligning I see. Ron seems to be the head devil and now he has P on the team. See, I told you guys before in my Analog Apologist thread that Digital Heathens (I now stand corrected, they are the Digital Devils)...
Mark

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When you have no facts to support your argument, then you attack the person. Nice work. Highly becoming for a MODERATOR.

tonmeister2008 said:

There's more than digital silence. How about significantly less distortion + noise (clicks,pops, noise, wow & flutter), more stable pitch, more effective dynamic range, typically flatter frequency response, no self-erasure of magnetic tapes/vinyl that warps/degrades with each use, significantly higher usability, convenience and sharing of music, greater consistency in manufacturing of product, higher price-to-performance ratio, greater repeatability in playback of media (no need to calibrate,demagatize CD player or clean and apply anti-static fluid to digital bits)........

i had a tape recorder and turntable until 1986. After I started measuring and calibrating them I realized how nonlinear they were, and never looked back. Once you hear and learn the distortions it's hard to ignore them. It's amazing they sound as good as they do, and that we are able to put up with the distortions and the inconvenience and lack of usability. I'm no longer one of those people that can.

I checked out this Valin reviewer at TAS who says that his main triggers are cues that tell him whether he's hearing live music or a recording of it. For me, as soon as I hear surface noise, clicks,pops, ticks, and hiss, I know I'm listening to a recording. There is a cognitive-dissonance that prevents me to suspend disbelief.

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For those interested in an adult discussion, one based not on name calling but instead based on substance, can someone who believes analog is a superior medium offer evidence that Dr. Olive is incorrect?

Ron Party said:

Putting *virtue* aside, your point reminds me of the 4 different categories of sound reproduction goals to which Tom Mallin made reference in a couple of his articles in this Forum. Honesty is THE goal in sound reproduction if your goal is the same as that which forms much of the basis for Dr. Olive's work, and which Dr. Olive writes in his first paragraph in this thread:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?865-Audio-Science-in-the-Service-of-Art

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Yes? I expect any manufucterer to have that goal. As I've indicated before I tend to dismiss products that don't measure well within reason when shopping for something new. That's the part that's easy to get right. If they can't get the easy parts right I don't believe they can go on to really get the tough stuff down. From there it's reviews (from reviewers I've calibrated by listening to the same equipment over time) to help narrow the field and then personal listening to finalize.

While I'm philosophically disposed to want the reproduction to recreate the original event I'm not after equipment that is so brutally honest/ruthlessly revealing of the recording of it that there are only a half dozen LP's, CD's, DVD's etc that are enjoyable to listen too. The goal is the music not every wart in the recording and playback system.

You keep asking for objective measures of the difference. I leave that up to Dr. Olive and his industry friends which is where it belongs. As I've said before I do this for enjoyment. If the system conveys the emotion of the music then I'm happy. Emotion is the real point the artist is after. Not whether the upper octaves are down a half dB or that a transient decay of a note was cut short by a hundredth of a second. Given this I see no point whatsoever in disecting the system, analog or digital, to prove what just doesn't matter. My day job has reliability goals that the medical types would consider zero risk. I see no reason for carrying that kind of rigor over into a hobby that's supposed to be fun. Like I said, a blonde vs brunette argument. No one right answer for the end user.

Mark, apparently the software Steve and Amir are using does not allow one to put another moderator on the ignore list. I have no further interest in discussing this with you. An adult conversation with you is impossible. Riddle me THAT.