The Economics of the Ultra High End

[mep]

And I'm amazed that the DOW is currently setting at around 12700. I pulled out when the DOW hit 11000 because I thought the market wouldn't sustain 11000 with everything going on in the world. I keep thinking this is irrational exuberance. The U.S. is on the verge of default if they don't raise the debt ceiling. Unemployment is still very high in this country as witnessed by a million people applying for 50,000 jobs at McDonalds recently. Very sad.

 

[caesar]

And I'm amazed that the DOW is currently setting at around 12700. I pulled out when the DOW hit 11000 because I thought the market wouldn't sustain 11000 with everything going on in the world. I keep thinking this is irrational exuberance. The U.S. is on the verge of default if they don't raise the debt ceiling. Unemployment is still very high in this country as witnessed by a million people applying for 50,000 jobs at McDonalds recently. Very sad.

The stock market does not always correlate with the general economy, for which GDP is a better measure. As a general rule, take your age and put it in bonds. The rest should go into stocks, split 60% in US and 40% in international. And then leave it alone and don't look at it too frequently... But we are getting way off topic here...

 

[fas42]

Plain old stereo is flawed, thus you will never think you are hearing a live instrumental recording of any real grouping of instruments about a stage or whatever.

Tom, you really hammer this one -- you really should always add that this may the case for yourself, but not necessarily for others! I take it from this that you have NEVER heard any stereo system, anywhere, at any time, ever produce something like a live reproduction?

Frank

 

[fas42]

never heard a two channel stereo sound like the real live unamplified event. It is theoretically impossible anyway.

Fair enough! We'll put it down to that darn unreliable ol' ear/brain interface not playing ball with us, just when we need it to be nice to us ...

Frank

 

[Lee]

No, Frank, never heard a two channel stereo sound like the real live unamplified event. It is theoretically impossible anyway.

I feel bad for you then Tom. I've heard acoustical instruments recreated quite faithfully in stereo. I politely but strongly differ here.

I also strongly disagree that audio is either simple or can be measured in its entirety.

 

[microstrip]

There is really only needed one modern specification, that is exercising the input with mutltiple tones and multiple amplitudes simultaneousy and looking at the output spectrum.....you will not see that in any magazine but thats what the pros do and don't tell you. So, you do not get to see the only spec that matters as far as accuracy to the source signal.....which for plain old stereo does not necessarily mean it will sound good to you.

Plain old stereo sounds good to you when recorded or tone control processed in a manner that sounds good to you. And you and the next guy like different things and your ear/brain interface is different and thus the processing of the stereo image is different, etc. It is that simple really. Audio is simple, but we are not.

When I refer to tone controls, I am referring to at any one time:

recording
source electronics
amplification electronics including conventional "tone controls" equalizers, processors, etc.
speakers
room
your ears
your ear/brain interface

They are ALL tone controls, they all dink around with the signal.

Tom

I agree with you that current measurements are not telling the whole story. However, the type of measurements you describe (used during development, not for checking sound quality) will return millions of values and are not an evaluation tool, unless you can correlate them with sound and then get a reasonable set of parameters

But since now we know what you consider tone controls, can you tell us something that it is not a tone control?

 

[Orb]

Audio is simple. The designers can measure everything that happens to the audio signal. Give me the money and I can buy the stuff to do that as well.

Plain old stereo is flawed, thus you will never think you are hearing a live instrumental recording of any real grouping of instruments about a stage or whatever.

What can not be measured is your ear/brain interface. Or mine. That is where the stereo image is produced and where our personal preference and expectation bias come into play.

That's also why a lot of high end gear measures poorly, not because we can't measure it all, but because people process things differently and their systems can become so convulted that a smattering of this or that makes the overall effect sound more pleasing, but never, really right IMO.

Tom

I am late to the party on this but I agree with Tom here.
Frank, please take the time to read the following link on Michael Gerzon who developed Ambisonics, its primary benefit is that it is more natural sound reproduction than stereo, the link has other article links relating to the subject of stereo vs surround sound Ambisonics vs quadrophonics.
The benefit of Ambisonics is that the recording and speaker channels are not linked in same way as say Dolby/SACD, although recordings still requires a specific process-components for true Ambisonics.
Quoting part of an article:

A major advantage of Ambisonic Surround Sound is that recording and studio processing are disengaged from reproduction.
The former produce and operate on the W, X, Y and Z channels, but these can be reproduced through any number of speakers.
The more speakers which are used the better, as this gives a larger listening area and a more stable sound localisation.
Using more speakers also improves the illusion that the speakers have vanished; that is to say, the listeners hear a single seamless sound field.
For horizontal surround sound a minimum of four speakers is required. Ambisonic technology places restrictions on the choice and placement of speakers

While Ambisonics is long dead (although I think it still exists to some extent as Trifield), I mention just because it may be the ideal way for actual reproduction/illusion of music and instruments, especially compared to stereo.
http://www.michaelgerzonphotos.org.uk/ambisonics.html

Anyway the link and those in that page are definitely worth reading.
Thanks
Orb