Audiophilia and the Playstation 1

[fmw]

But...I have a question that maybe jostenmeat and/or fmw could address. I often wonder about the notion that anyone 'knows' how music should sound. The oft-stated goal of the audiophile (meaning lover of music and not freako tweak that believes a green marker can affect a 680 nm laser ) is to build a system that as accurately as possible can reproduce the sound of live music.

Live music is played by humans and humans are not perfect at all times. The listener is affected by myriad factors (mood, temperature, environment, hearing abililty, etc). So how is it that one trained in music (whatever that means - MS degree in Music or life-long musician) can know that a reproduction meets or falls short of the ideal given that the live version can itself vary?
....

That's a really good question. I often wonder how writers use recordings of electronic instruments - even sythesizers - to judge the "fidelity" of a recording or playback equipment. It is absolutely impossible to know how it should sound in a recording if you haven't heard the same setup live. Assuming a competent recording engineer, it is a fair assumption that the recording does a good job of capturing the sound, but it will always be an assumption.

But we all know what an alto saxophone sounds like or an acoustic piano or violin or cymbal. We've heard them live before and, while different musicians will generate different expressiveness with the instruments, their sound in a recording should be fair game for comparative purposes. "unplugged" music should be the reference and the test music, in my opinion - or vocals, of course.

I generally listen past the the recording to the performance itself. There are lots of recorded professional pianists or guitarists or violinists or other performers. Every single one of them plays differently and they play differently at different times. Musicians have good days and bad days like anyone else. You and I may be fussier about how well the performance is recorded and played back than some people, but it is the quality of the performance we're really after.

Yesterday I got a 2 CD set from Musical Heritage of the "original" Dixieland Band. It was recorded in 1917. The recording is truly awful even though it was remastered as well as possible. It sounds like it was recorded through a telephone. It was most likely recorded from 78 rpm records. The music itself is great fun and entertaining. It was an excellent band. It would have been great to have heard them live. The music is king.

 

[fmw]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think I can in many instances hear a difference between recordings or even percieve a 'flaw' but it does not detract from my experience. I'd rather have ANY version of a song I like than none at all. I listen right through the flaws....

Sure and so can the rest of us. You will always be happier in my opinion if you listen to the music instead of listening to the equipment.

 

[jostenmeat]

I've really enjoyed following these posts..... I don't think I've read a better thread........thanks

Well, we are eager to please. I am not sure how or why its such a great thread, but that's fine by me! Thanks for your compliment!

But...I have a question that maybe jostenmeat and/or fmw could address. I often wonder about the notion that anyone 'knows' how music should sound. The oft-stated goal of the audiophile (meaning lover of music and not freako tweak that believes a green marker can affect a 680 nm laser ) is to build a system that as accurately as possible can reproduce the sound of live music.

Live music is played by humans and humans are not perfect at all times. The listener is affected by myriad factors (mood, temperature, environment, hearing abililty, etc). So how is it that one trained in music (whatever that means - MS degree in Music or life-long musician) can know that a reproduction meets or falls short of the ideal given that the live version can itself vary?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think I can in many instances hear a difference between recordings or even percieve a 'flaw' but it does not detract from my experience. I'd rather have ANY version of a song I like than none at all. I listen right through the flaws....

I think this another can of worms. I think fmw's statement (which I think I will reply to as well) is another. Hmmrrz.

It is hard to define "know", especially in this case. If you watch a very good DVD on a great HDTV, do you "know" if it "falls short of the ideal given that the live version can itself vary"? (I am not trying to be obtuse, or play the devil's advocate, but I am curious how you would explain this- if only if it would help explain the question proposed).

Right... so there is "suspension of disbelief"... or something like that? When we watched 480i movies back in the day on an old Zenith CRT, we didn't think about what was missing in comparison to the ideal. I think its the same with music-listening. I think that it's when you hear equipment that is much superior is the moment when one might say, "Ohhh, that was missing the whole time!!". For instance, one example... My speakers are electrostats, that have plenty of compromises which I will not point out at this moment. With those compromises come a couple of distinct advantages (always a yin for the yang). The low-level detail that is given by, um, an "extremely light midrange driver" if you will, lets me hear the decay of a piano or guitar note much better. I mean for much longer time into "full decay" down to what I might call an extremely quiet whisper level. See... I never, ever had knocked or dissed hi-end BW's, Dynaudio's, Monitor Audio's, for not being able to do this before. However, I didn't know that it was "even possible and/or missing", until the moment that I heard "better equipment"... (Not that the stats are better, but referring to my point about movie watching).

Now, to your point about the "trained listener". I don't even know if this is even possible to know, prove, or argue. However, I am much, much more familiar with the decay of certain sounds/instruments than other instruments. Just as fmw stated he sometimes listens especially to particular drum sounds due to his extreme familiarity with them. Doesn't this seem to point towards the direction of the "trained listener".

We often use the voice as a certain good test for speakers. Why? Because of our incredible familiarity with the human voice. Something we pretty much have listened to every day of our lives. A certain trained musician will probably have heard 8-12 hours of music a day, if not 15-18 hours. I know a certain musician he garnered more international competitions than I can remember, and he practiced 15 hours a day. Pianists also practice all freaking day long. Vocalists cannot. A trumpeter can practice multiple hours a day, but I have never seen or heard someone get to 8 hours day daily.

Anyways, say some certain dedicated musician is practicing only 5 hours a day. He/she then will also listen to recordings, with great, great focused intention in comparing recordings of the same work. This musician also performs and rehearses with other musicians. A violinist will often be practicing solo, in a chamber ensemble, as well as in an orchestra. Sometimes, all those in the same day.

Just as we all are familiar with the human voice, some people are more familiar with the live sound of instruments. Some people are producing or analytically judging live performed sound nearly every day of their lives as their profession.

Better than average listeners? I'm not sure I understand that. I would undertand better than average writers or better known reviewers but not better listeners. While the subjective magazine reviewers write as though they have a special gift for hearing, they don't. They have normal hearing like the rest of us. They are entertaining writers and that's why they have a job with the magazine. Audible differences are audible to anybody with normal hearing. A person who hasn't spent years doing subjective listening tests might not know what causes an audible difference or how to describe it in entertaining prose but they would still hear it. When there are audible differences their preference might be different from yours or mine but the test score would be the same.

The blind tests I've conducted have either been group tests with members of an audiophile club or tests with my wife and I alone. My wife has no feel at all for high fidelity. She could care less but her hearing is normal.

And thanks for your comment.

They have the ability to hear what we do. But it doesn't mean that they immediately do. I have corrective 20/20 vision, but a friend of mine is much more acute with what he sees. I can't explain it. I've known him for nearly 20 years, and I only found out this year that he really, really trains his eyes. Like, focusing only one eye, while letting the other eye go out of focus. Wierd stuff like that. He will practice focusing different distances from the same position. I don't know if its the cause of his acuity, or just a side benefit of stupid entertainment from having better visual abilities.

I hate background noice. You know especially fans from amps, dlps, cable boxes, etc. However, I never, ever point them out to fellow movie or music enjoyers. I will ruin it for them, I know, because I have already. They say, "Why did you point that out to me??, arrrgh". Yep, they sure could hear it too. But it didn't come until pointed out. Im not sure how I would explain that. How would you?

Sure and so can the rest of us. You will always be happier in my opinion if you listen to the music instead of listening to the equipment.

I think I need to get this quote framed. Maybe embroidered on a future room treament!

Happy weekend and Halloween to all. Drive responsibly please.

 

[fmw]

Let's take a synthesizer or an electric guitar fed through pedals as examples. We have no idea how it they should sound. We only know how they sound in the recording. Only the people that were at the recording session know how they should sound. I think that's pretty self evident. My only point was that acoustic instruments and voice make a better sound reference because we know how they sound live. Can't see a can of worms here at all. In fact you said about the same thing.

I think your comments about mid range speaker drivers are perfectly valid in terms of absolute fidelity. Plenty of difference in sound between a boom box and a high end stereo system too. It is just a matter of degree.

My comments about experienced listeners related to listening tests. Listening experience doesn't make one hear better. It just makes one understand better what is being heard. I like to listen to cymbals when I do listening tests. I know what I am listening for from experience. But I don't hear it any better than my wife does. If I explain to her what to listen for, she will get to the same place I do.

Incidentally, comparing hearing and eyesight can be a slippery slope. I don't think hearing tones at various frequencies at different volume levels equate well to optical resolution. In audio, resolution or fidelity is in the source material, not the ears. In eyesight it is in the eyes themselves. As a youngster I had had 20/5 vision. I could resolve details at 20 feet that someone with 20/20 vision would need to view from 5 feet to resolve. That's changed over the years. Now I deal with vision that is corrected to 20/20. I don't see as well. There is no similar measurement in hearing.

I don't hear as well as I did as youngster but it has nothing to do with hearing details in my audible range. It means I can't hear much over 14khz and that I turn up the volume a little more than I did years ago.

 

[jostenmeat]

...My comments about experienced listeners related to listening tests. Listening experience doesn't make one hear better. It just makes one understand better what is being heard. I like to listen to cymbals when I do listening tests. I know what I am listening for from experience. But I don't hear it any better than my wife does. If I explain to her what to listen for, she will get to the same place I do.

This is where the can of worms might apply. You know what you are "listening for from experience". Exactly. Now, your wife seems to as well. I don't think that applies to all. Your wife must have very musical ears. I don't know how many times I've pointed subtleties out to my non-musician friends, and they would reply, "I have really no idea what you are talking about...". I don't do this very often at all, but that is usually what happens. Anyways, your wife obviously has lived with a musician for a long time... which means she has heard live music on a pretty consistent basis over many years. I can not say that about plenty of my friends.

I remember in my earlier training (where I was lucky to have top-notch prof's), and NOT being able to hear what the instructor was complaining about. It had to do with cleanliness. To completely remove all other extraneous noises, buzzes, un-related harmonics, stuff like that. It took me quite a while to "train" my ears to hear all of that stuff (At least a year or two). Of course, in later years I tried to pride myself on very clean playing. Since, I've been asked by many other Masters and Doctoral students and/or graduates to personally critique their performances prior to an important event. Sometimes, depending on performer, they themselves could not hear all of the noises they made. Now, if dedicated professional-level musicians didn't have yet the "experience", its harder for me to imagine a complete neophyte to easily pick that stuff up.

Some will "learn" more quickly than others. Believe it or not, I've never been a big believer in music = talent-first (even though so many others do). Sometimes, after being asked earlier in life, "oh, I play classical music", they would immediately respond with, "Oh, I wish I had the talent!". I would always say "baloney, if you love it you will learn it". That being said, it takes a lot of work. And not just the technical aspect, but the listening as well...

Incidentally, comparing hearing and eyesight can be a slippery slope. I don't think hearing tones at various frequencies at different volume levels equate well to optical resolution. In audio, resolution or fidelity is in the source material, not the ears. In eyesight it is in the eyes themselves. As a youngster I had had 20/5 vision. I could resolve details at 20 feet that someone with 20/20 vision would need to view from 5 feet to resolve. That's changed over the years. Now I deal with vision that is corrected to 20/20. I don't see as well. There is no similar measurement in hearing.

You are comparing "live" viewing to "recorded" listening. Better to compare "live" viewing with "live" listening. Granted, a slippery slope. I am seeing "live" every single day of my life. How often do I hear "live" acoustical instrumental performances. Pretty rarely these days. Who actually hears "live" acoustical music every single day of their life. You know what, I know plenty, but they are all trained musicians, or at the very least live with or are married to them.

20/20, sure there may not be a comparable measurement. The point was that two diffferent persons with 20/20 vision can have very different abilities with noticing all sorts of details. My friend literally "trained" his eyes; as a musician might "train" his ears. I remember playing poker with him at the Commerce Casino a couple of years ago, he immediately spotted someone stealing a chip from the gentleman next to him (banned for life). No one else did, including dealer, etc. Now, we can all see someone's hand moving, but some are just much more aware of everything they are seeing. (He is not a magician either). I posit that some people are much more aware of everything they are hearing. I (forgive me MDS) sometimes know that I am hearing more than, say, a good friend, brother/family, etc, in specific regards to acoustical performance or recording. Can they learn all that stuff? Sure! Have they? Not yet. Could I teach them what to listen for rather easily? I don't think so, not easily anyways. Some are surely not nearly as obtuse as I am, but it still did take me a very, very long time to get to the peak of my listening abilities; however truly modest that peak might have been.

Music is the most abstract of all arts. Its pretty hard to talk about I suppose.

 

[fmw]

I think that the musician who doesn't play cleanly isn't paying attention. There is no question he can hear the buzzes or whatever anomalies might come out of his playing. Someone like you has the experience. You pay attention. You bring it to the attention of the other musician. The playing gets cleaner. His technique improves. That's what teachers and coaches do and have always done. They add their experience to the knowledge base and skill of the student. The student can hear just as well. He just doesn't interpret what he hears in the same way you do or he ignores it because his attention is focused on something else.

I agree that musical performance is a learned skill. Few people know how much time and work is involved in reaching a professional level of performance. They think it is talent. They haven't seen the hours and weeks and months and years of study and practice. They marvel at how well the performer plays a piece of music. They don't understand how many times the performer has played. it. I remember once a few years ago we had Stephanie Chase, a fine violinist, play the Beethoven concerto with our local orchestra. I attended the party afterward and asked her if she knew how many times she has played the concerto. She shrugged and said, she didn't know but it was many thousands of times. Time and work.

I respond in the same way to your comments about vision. As you say, we can all see a hand move. We aren't always paying attention just like the musical performer with sloppy technique isn't paying attention to his technique.