Then complement the essays with a few reviews by Jacob Helibrunn, as she recently suggested.
Videos of Acoustically-Coupled Audio Recordings
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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Then complement the essays with a few reviews by Jacob Helibrunn, as she recently suggested.
I will add you to the list of people on this forum who enjoy telling other people what they should do.
Thanks, Peter. I'll see if I can clarify a few points here.
- I never suggested one should crank the volume up on either video here.
- Noise floors don't make noise. Hissing at least in my recordings is generally residue from the master tape during the A2D conversion. If you're hearing more hiss in the newer video, that's usually the result of higher resolution. After all, it's embedded in the recording. But a tape hiss in a digital playback is usually a little bit like vinyl's snap, crackle, pop. But hopefully to a much lesser extent. From my perspective, it's just barely noticeable and certainly negligible.
Not sure what you mean by noise floor. There's only two noise floors that concern me i.e. the system's electrical-induced and the speaker/room acoustically-induced noise floors don't generally introduce audible noise. But these noise floors will mask much music info (including parts of every note) including rendering good percentages of music info inaudible (below the noise floor threshold) at the speaker.
I'm unfamiliar with excessive sibilance - perhaps you could explain. To the best of my knowledge, there is sibilance and negative sibilance. When certain distortions remain unaddressed in a playback system, negative sibilance becomes a real factor. To the best of my knowledge, negative sibilance has been a non-issue in my system. This is not to say that an occassional moment of negative sibilance can never be present as sometimes the vocalist's mouth too close to a microphone, etc can induce some negative sibilance.
But my general rule is, if there is at least a single occurrence of excellent sibiliance during a playback presentation, then other occurences of negative sibilance usually is within the recording itself. IOW, when present this distortion within the system itself is a constant. But vocalists moving their mouths further and closer to their microphones is variable as are things done by the engineers during the recording.
A lot of processsing? No clue what you're implying so it seems to me you're reaching here. At the very least, please elaborate.
That sounds reasonable to me.
Unless you're speaking of the brushes against the cymbals I'm unaware of what you're talking about nor do I recall hearing it. Please elaborate.
Based on your characterizations and my clarifications, that sounds about right.
Mostly. But I've also fine-tuned my subwoofer configs as well as auditioning a new product right now.
Nah. Once in a while I'll touch the iPhone to zoom in and do a close up. But the camera position always remains the same.
Doubtful. For several reasons but especially since nothing related there changes. For example. Say the newer system's resolution is genuinely superior than the older, one would actually hear less of the room and more of the recording hall. Not more of the listening room.
Well, I'm guessing the subwoofer's excursions probably have very little to do with sax, maybe some to do with some piano notes, but obviously much more with bass notes.
Though bass can always, always be more finely tuned than what we presently hear in any system, I'm not overly concerned as illustrated here. Besides, the Danny Boy recording barely has any bass compared to this number. Crank this one all the way up.
I'm betting you do.
There certainly are some drawbacks to digital vs analog particularly due to the quality of the analog-to-digital conversion process for which I have to work with. But it's not the end of the world.
When/if such genuine potential deficiancies arise as you claim here, it can often times be any combination of a number of things, including but not limited to inferior component selection, how the designers voiced their components, the fact that many digital recordings go thru an analog-to-digital conversion process and often times digital recordings can get clouded a bit in that process, something I've done erroneously, etc.
Then again, all components are inferior as are all designer's voicing of components and speakers, and systems and recordings too, so to some degree it's a pick-your-poison scenario.
My system is a digital source and my amps are Class D - and though not digital they seem to carry some digital-like attributes. Then there's my all silver ic's and sc's (speaker cables) and other electrical items that are cryogenically-treated via the full immersion method. IOW, I do everything reasonbly possible so as not to hinder a single bit of info embedded in the recording but instead let the recording determine the quality of playback presentation. This includes tape hiss - which can also be blamed on analog.
Yes, there are pros to analog and negatives to digital but also vice versa. I think some vinyl lovers like to imagine/invent perceived sounds in order to show their superiority over digital. Surely you're not trying to turn this into an analog vs digital thing, are you? You can't win.
Thanks.
Stehno, Thank you for your patience. I go to work for a few hours and there are five more pages to this thread.
1. Regarding the volume, you suggest cranking it on all your others, so I assumed the same here. Sorry.
2. The tape hiss means this was originally an analog recording. I did not know that. I thought it odd because I thought it was a digital recording. Thank you for clarifying.
3. I don't know about sibilance and negative sibilance. I am simply describing what I hear on your video through my computer and headphones. I hear too much. Not on your other videos, but on this video. No idea why or the origin. I find it distracting and unnatural here. If it is the recording, I am surprised as this is a popular recording, but as I said earlier, people like this sound. It seems detailed.
4. By processing I am referring to the reverb and hollow hall sound of what I assume is a recording studio because it is so silent. Is this in the studio or is it in a large hall? I associate this kind of echo with Gregorian chanting in stone cathedrals. Strange in this type of girl singing song. It sounds like great audiophile hifi to me. Lots of detail, but little life and not natural ambiance. Little nuance. Comment on recording more than system, but hard for me to make a clear distinction. It is very clean sounding.
5. I am talking about the brush work on the cymbals. It is whitish hash devoid of articulation and clarity.
6. Thank you for clarifying the camera/mic position. Same for both. I was fooled by the different perspective of the zoom shot.
7. I was not associating the woofer excursion with any particular instrument. Just a lot of movement. The bass performance of my one large 15" horn loaded paper driver versus my three small 7" sealed Magico drivers is remarkably different. I hear much more bass articulation, impact, and nuance from the large driver that hardly moves on a couple of watts. I remember seeing my small drivers moving a lot, especially on the Magico Mini II.
8. Analog and digital usually sound very different to me. There are exceptions.
9. I don't know about inferiority of components or designers' choices. I know nothing about your chosen gear or room. It is your gear of choice, so I assume you are pleased with the presentation, especially since you share so many system videos. Nothing wrong with that.
10. Digital, Class D amps, silver wires. That explains much. Thank you.
11. Yes, digital is very different from analog. Our world, the natural world is analog. This is not an analog/digital debate. I am not interested. I do not know anything about digital. I have an all analog system. Here, you and I differ.
this is about Peter and you not accepting that David does not like certain stuff. This was clarified. The two of you keep twisting that.
We all know some of what Brad likes and dislikes. His dislike of SS such as Dartzeel is well known. If he visits Mike, and Mike buys Aries Cerat and says, Brad did not tell me he disliked my Dartzeel, I am going to say, Seriously? Do you think then, the Seriously statement is about Brad, or Mike?
Ked, now you are the one twisting. Of course I accept that David does not like certain stuff. All of us do not like certain stuff. David is no different. This was about David denigrating gear to make sales as a typical dealer as KingRex stated in his post. I reject that characterization. Nothing more, nothing less.
Frankly, I think only some stuff interests David. The rest is as you say "meh" and he can't be bothered with it. That is far from denigrating gear just for the heck of it. The implication that he slams stuff out of the blue is just plain false. I am sharing my personal experience of a few years of exchanges with David, in person, on the phone, and in writing. He does not denigrate gear to me unless answering a specific question about something. Your experience may be different, and you should find his supposed many posts on WBF where he denigrates gear for the sake of making a sale to support Rex's claim.
Okay, this is some progress. You may see it as condescension but 'objective' and 'opinion' are not interchangeable words. Sans measurement, 'objective' or 'objectively' implies not being influenced by your personal interpretations or feeling, but rather unbiased or based on facts. All we have to go on here are the words we write. Saying honestly does not give opinion more weight.
So, leave off the adjectives, the effort to characterize your endeavor and get to the heart of it: assessing the strengths and weaknesses of an audio system.
That was the 'meta' part - talking about how we talk. Now for the content part ...
I already invited you to lay out how to go about assessing audio systems. If you have a way to recommend doing that, it will be interesting to hear your view. I suspect some of that will be establishing definitions of terms used. We have numerous threads on that and as you saw with "resolution", it is difficult to find agreement. But if you define your terms, your references or standards and your methodology you can create a model for going about what you're after. You can lay out what you value. Doing so will make a contribution and show effort at communicating that goes beyond the daily forum nattering and kibitzing.
None of what I just wrote is meant to be perjorative. It's kinda awkward to feel a need to say that, but there it is.
Peter replied to you on this and I endorse his reply. What I don't understand is why this is important to you? If David was still participating I doubt you'd be so casually brazen.
Peter, denigrating is a broad term. I know David’s choice of words for Monaco and many know his choice of words for describing gear he doesn’t like. You can argue forever if those words are harsh or not, different people describe negative opinions differently. Staying silent, pursing lips, and choice words can all be described as denigrating. I repeat, I do not believe you and Tima did not know what he thought of your gear.
I said it once, you guys kept on, compelling me to reply. The fact that you two keep jumping in to support each other means I have to reply twice
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Kadar, do you know what David really thinks about the horn speakers you like and the Thomas Meyer electronics that you promote? How about the DeVa cartridge? I know because I asked him his opinion.
Now ask yourself if he denigrates that stuff to you or here on the forum. That is before he stopped participating.
i know for sure he does not respect Mayer and vyger. I don’t know about Dava but I suspect he does not like it either. Same would be with Lampi
He can choose to like or dislike whatever, and you can, and I can. That's not the point. The point is, imagine if owned the above, changed it to Lamm and AS, as a client and said David did not criticize the above gear. That's not right.
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I am signing off on this conversation. You don’t seem to believe my own account of my own experience with David. I can’t do anything about that. And he is not here to defend himself or respond to whatever the point you’re trying to make is.
You keep misrepresenting. It's your comment you have to defend, not him. His tastes are clear
Oh ... you were compelled were you? We were not inclined to let you spew garbage about a mutual friend, so you got some pushback. Whatever your motivation or self-characterization, you've come across as nasty and vindictive. Usually you're not so harsh.
Have your last word - I'm done with your trash talking.
That was / Is his choice entirely , Do please cease attempting to twist that point.
I would say Micro’s point about both in parallel is valid for a large % of people on this forum. If you have finally found what you are looking for…great!
Lol , Yes when i reach that stage i m happy .
But every time i pick up an audiomagazine i need to spend at least 10 K each and every month over and over again with no end in sight to be able to keep up with " audio nirvana"
This begs an interesting question…what could objective look like in the absence of measurements? Is it even possible to be objective without “hard” facts? Is describing HOW something sounds and getting a consensus from other listeners about a sound characteristic from a system objective or subjective?
Exactly my thoughts as well. And why I suggested leaving out 'objective' as a characteristic of the exercise up-front to avoid pre-judgement, and just talk about assessing an audio system. We might learn if that was objective or subjective or what. Or perhaps which characteristics are objective and which are subjective. Having been at this for a while I'm sceptical of a consensus, but if @hopkins has some new ideas it would be interesting to hear them.
Probably true. With values set and what I have now, I feel I'm close. I still want to try an SME 3012 and different cartridges. And better records.
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