High Fidelity and Preferences

[JackD201]

In degrees perhaps but not in principle

 

[FrantzM]

as many have already pointed out; really there is no clear standard for recording which is precise and universal. at best we have a 'fuzzy' kinda target to aim at. open to interpretation as to the prioroties. i don't think listening to live music is the end-all for judgeing system performance. it's one data point, important but not really representative with the original recording vision of the mastering/mixing engineer.....who's product we are attempting to replicate.

so then how can we 'be in a bad place' as Frantz proposes when we pursue high fidelity?

the answer is that we must rely on our own sensibilities to determine where 'good enough' is in terms of high fidelity. the best balance of sonics, budget, space, comfort.

if we believe it's high fidelity then it is....based on our experience.

when our reproduction reference changes, our ability to achieve that might too.

that is certainly been how it's worked for me. when i hear something (in a reproduction system) that takes me further, i then have the vision to go there.

Mike

I didn't say that we are in a bad place when we pursue Fidelity. In fact that is what our hobby is purported to be pursuing. I said that if there is no clear reference and that it becomes something where anything and everything goes, it is a bad place and we are getting there IMO…. If there isn't a modicum of references we are all lost. When the standard becomes whatever one likes .. You can see the deterioration it engenders. Thus my exaggerations: Car Boom Boxes and Bose Lifestyle ... They are liked by some people Are they any good ? We all know the answer to that question... So our being audiophiles bestow us a higher weighing in determining what is good?

If there is no clear reference however idealistic, difficult or impossible it might be. A reference never to be reached or achieved. How is progress evaluated? We will all agree that speakers have gotten better.. Right? So what do they approximate then? In getting better? How did we make progress in speakers? By objectively making their output becoming more similar to their input the operative word is more similar .. And also by listening to them and determining objectively how close they are to a real sound … Not because we work in the vacuum of what someone likes.. SO without a reference however ethereal it is how can we judge progress? How can make any progress? If there is not a place where we need to go , how can we reach anything ? So what the ever increasing prices of gears imply then ? That they are more to the liking of those who can afford them only, with a total disconnect to a reference? In that sense we shall soon see a Bose High End system complete with tiny speakers made of platinum and these would be good since some would find them ...good? That is where Audio Relativism takes us IMO... We no longer abide to anything , only to what some find palatable with often a great disconnect with reality or virtual reality that the (better) engineers try to construct. In the pursuit of an artistic vision.
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Now another thing about the quality of recordings... I am certain every single soul on this forum would accept that a picture from the best Photographer with the best camera is only a portrayal of reality .. Not reality itself.. It can be quite satisfying in itself but rarely will fool us into thinking that we are witnessing reality .. I must say however that video can be very, very convincing in a way I am not too sure Audio yet, is. But back to that a picture can be doctored in order to simulate an heightened sense of ...err...uhhh.. "realism" ... Thus the sky which is bluer in some pictures or the out-of-focus background and other artifices that are used in Photography/video/movies.. Some of these have their equivalent in Audio recording and reproduction and some are worse than others (vide Turner colorizing of the Movie Classics) but some can be subtle enough or well made enough to provoke a sense of disbelief (in movies I would calmly place the Masterpiece Avatar is for several minutes I was on that planet and frankly I would love to visit such a place but I am digressing) ... As in any Art forms there are bad and good artifices, there are bad and good recordings.. IT could be that the bad outnumber the good and by a large ratio ... Again the same applies to ALL art forms .. For the millions of pictures taken by Amateurs and Professionals across the planet.. Only a few are worthy of the “Artistic” qualification ... Do we not look at pictures because of that? Let's take another example .. Poems .. Would we simply change the words because we don't "like" the poem…

A System that is not neutral and whose simple claim is that a group of people like it and can afford it is not to me the way the industry of the hobby will see any progress … The Reference has to be a mixture of objective reality (how well it approaches a given repeatable metric) or how much trained individual find it to approach a given reality … The current Audiophile Relativism is as a matter of fact a clear indication of the lack of progress in our Industry …

 

[fas42]

I am certain every single soul on this forum would accept that a picture from the best Photographer with the best camera is only a portrayal of reality .. Not reality itself.. It can be quite satisfying in itself but rarely will fool us into thinking that we are witnessing reality .. I must say however that video can be very, very convincing in a way I am not too sure

It may be relevant here to include a piece I added to the thread entitled "Invisible Speakers" ...

My conclusion so far is that our sensory systems are willing to be deluded, if we supply them with sufficient high quality information. Interestingly enough, sometime earlier I had read about an exactly equivalent phenomenon with the visual system, which may make it easier to get a handle on things ...

What they were doing was to develop a very high quality movie projection system, in the belief that it would attract more patrons -- similar concept to IMax but more advanced. They did research, and found that removing flicker between frames was crucial, the frame rate was upped dramatically and the resolution and screen size increased.

One big problem. They got the technology working, early 70's I think, made a exciting test film of a car racing down a mountain road and tried it on a test audience. And disaster! The people watching could not stop their system and bodies reacting to what was happening on the screen as if it were real, I can't recall the exact details, but something along the lines of heart attacks, vomiting, fainting, you name it. And that was the end of the technology, shelved indefinitely, I guess ...

The assessment by the doctors was that no matter how certain people were in their heads that what they were watching was not real, the quality of the presentation was enough for the eye/brain to cross a threshhold and say to the physical self, This Is The Real Thing!

Frank