A frank discussion about accuracy, with Stereophile's Herb Reichert
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- čas přidán 17. 05. 2020
- Steve and Herb have these sorts of conversations all the time, and with this one you're privy to their banter.
Herb is a Senior Contributing Editor for Stereophile magazine, www.stereophile.com/writer/12...
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PLEASE LIKE THIS VIDEO! - Zábava
OK, I will stop using virtual backgrounds in these interviews soon, but I have a few interviews I already shot that have annoying backgrounds. After that, just my messy apartment!
Steve Guttenberg Audiophiliac all we care about is the content. And the content is good!
At first I thought, "Where did you get the freaky camera inflicted with Abstract Picasso disease?"
no big deal. we have been looking at your messy apartment for years already. :)
I think the diva-free-wind-hair is fantastic... Love it. It's what I would expect to see if I had taken something... :)
Thought I was on acid again....
I gave up “accuracy” for good, “fun” sound a long time ago. Flat is boring, love my horns!
There are 3 measurement DOMAINS...... The Frequency Domain, the Time Domain, and the Amplitude Domain (dynamics). All the focus by the accuracy camp has always been Frequency Response. But you can have a system, that measures perfectly flat frequency response, yet smears the time domain, and compresses the dynamics. A system like this will measure nice, but sound awful. Horns may not be flat in frequency, but they are more accurate in dynamics, and therefore sound more REAL. A panel speaker may have better time domain response, and therefore sound more transparent, but it will compress dynamics, and not measure flat. There are things to admire in all these different designs, and all are compromises.
Speakers usually wont "compress" the dynamics at modest volumes (unless they are some cheap-ass ones with corrugated paper surround from Walmart or something). There definitely is non-linearity at higher volumes, which will cause distortion owing to the drivers getting close to their excursion limits. This can be easily seen on a spectrum analyzer if there is a fixed frequency tone or tones being played. There will no longer be a clean single peak being picked up by the mic but splatter at other frequencies once the amplitude is too great. I suppose its possible to have a non-linear amplitude response, but that's usually something like overdriving the speakers (something any speaker can be subject to) unless they have active circuitry in them. As said previously, though, this can be easily picked up with test gear since it will readily cause distortion to a sine wave. Compression can take place in the audio amplifier itself (some using switching topologies do it to avoid clipping) or any auxiliary equipment that you might be using, like software EQs, etc., of course. Or usually more often in the actual recording material itself given todays over-the-top recording levels. Still kind of hate that compared to the way it used to be. The other issue definitely is a problem. The more accurate term for "smearing" is phase nonlinearity (or varying group delay in the time domain). Cross over networks, EQs or anything that is selective with respect to frequency will impose a phase difference on the signal with varying frequencies. Ideally you want it to be reasonably flat. I have run into what your talking about when trying to make shit speakers sound good with an EQ. They were "flat" with respect to response on the test gear, but sound _very_ unnatural owing to the phase distortion from having to use so much corrections on the EQ.
Also important to mention _transient response_ as it has a big effect on how speakers sound. If they are flat with respect to amplitude/frequency with a continuous signal with have poor transient response (e.g. ringing, overshoot, etc.), they will have pukey sounding, sloppy bass. The amplifiers damping factor can help here, but it requires an error signal (e.g. back-EMF that doesn't correlate to the driving signal) to work, but ideally the speakers should be adequately damped and not exhibit lots of overshoot or slow response when driven with rapidly varying signals. Obviously all speakers have their limits, but a lot of the tiny self-powered speakers with bass-reflex enclosures seem to have this issue since they have a small piss-ant driver being pushed _hard_ by a power amp.
@@mysock351C
I disagree.
I believe there's a great deal more dynamic compression occuring, even at modest playback levels, than many enthusiasts acknowledge.
As one of the subtractive types of distortion, this power compression is precisely what Herb is discussing in this particular video.
I've built my primary system around the characteristics of dynamic realism, via mitigation of dynamic compression. I'm particularly bothered by the absence of such realism... we all have our priorities, dynamic realism is mine.
There's both magnetic compression, and thermal compression.
As we know, heat is a by-product of current flow.
@@FOH3663 I've taken measurements with an audio spectrum analyzer on several speakers for yucks. Using two examples (Sony SS-MF315 and Polk S55 speakers), at low volumes the speakers were capable of producing pure tones without much sign of harmonics, indicating that they were fairly linear. At higher volumes, the Sony woofers started producing additional harmonic spurs as well as intermodulation distortion during a two-tone test. This indicates that the suspension and surround are starting to limit the motion of the speaker. The mid-ranges also experienced some non-linearities. At higher volumes, all three drivers generate significant harmonic content during single tone tests. For the Polks the midrange drivers did ok, but the tweeters there produce harmonic content for almost all volumes, probably due to them being new, and of a different design. Doesn't seem to affect the sound, but it is there on the analyzer.
@@FOH3663 And for reference, if a speaker/amplifier can produce a pure tone on a measuring instrument without any other harmonics, then it can be assumed to be reasonably linear. Obviously a microphone wont be as sensitive as a distortion analyzer, but it can be assumed that the THD is < 1% if only a single tone is present. Any sign at all of any other tones or IMD during a single or two-tone test indicates nonlinearities for either the amplifier or speakers. Unless your using a single-ended tube amp (e.g. a Decware or similar), most amplifiers are very linear throughout their power ranges, and will produce very little harmonic distortion. The speakers, however, will produce almost all of the harmonic distortion, and this can be easily heard at higher volumes.
2 of my favorite reviewer together
Euphony. It has been scorned ever since I started this hobby. Now it is my goal.
Great to hear this discussed by you two with so much experience. I think Herb gets it right when he says, "when it FEELS real." Music is emotion. Herb Reichert is a national treasure. 🙏
Great discussion. Nelson Pass also describes it well and realistically. He cites measurement as important for obtaining baseline distortion, reliability and repeatability. But his real work comes in by listening and tweaking until he gets the sound he seeks. He has a small cadre of like minded guys who all use the same speakers for listening tests and rely on the group assessment before deciding on the finished product. That thought process appeal to me especially after all the abuse I've seen from the engineering crowd that only reference their scope and chastise those that depend on their ears to assess the sound.
When I tour an audio show, when a room sounds good, I find a First Watt or Pass Labs amp.
I also think that Paul at PS Audio described the tube vs solid state pretty well. As a manufacturer he avoided tubes as they are more prone to service issues. But he relented after a trusted partner forced him to listen to amp prototypes with a tube front end vs solid state. The tube front end could not be beat. The output side of the amp is well suited to great solid state to get the power output.
Personally, I like simple triode designs with great power supply. Then you must deal with the output transformer. This must be either a very big well made device ($$$$$) or a good OTL design. I chose the latter.
These silly audio golden ears snobbery discussions still grate on me after all these years. That your preference for analog
Over digital, tube over solid state,and anything but class D doesn't showcase snobbery I don't know what does. There are superb examples of each and looking condescendingly askance at anyone with different preferences demeans the hobby. I get some enthusiasts want to fiddle around with vinyl and its idiosyncrasies and rituals and nostalgia factor. But good digital is also spectacular and without all the muss and fuss ,not to mention instant access to literally any music you wish via streaming or hi rez files. Kind of like comparing hi performance internal combustion performance cars to the new electric Supercars. VERY DIFFERENT INDEED. However at the objective performance level the Electric technology wins hands down.You may prefer the growls,smells and unforgiving performance criteria of Internal combustion ala Ferrari but the future belongs to the Tesla's , Porche electrics etc. The same could be said of digital audio compared to analog. There is no economy of scale to analog. Yes it's possible to buy world class analog rigs at outsize prices. While the analog groupies spend $40,000.00 for phone preamps, Mr. Sanders provides an entire world class digital system including built in room correction for 25,000.00 that rivals anything out there from the price no object crowd.
Tim Willson Why is preference necessarily “snobbery”?
The virtual background is cool man. Feel like I'm on an old acid trip from highschool. Hahahahaha
When I see and hear these two great guys talking, I miss Art Dudley. What a loss.
Me too! A great writer, and a teacher. I loved his sense of humour, and he was a real listener- to me, a voice that reminded me to stop & listen.
I always love hearing what Herb has to say. "Dust particles of information", what a perfect description.
Herb is a good, refreshing voice in the community. His experience shows. I love him more in person than in print.
I enjoyed this video very much today. Good way to start the morning. I’m very late to the Audiophile world and a bottom feeder at best but truly enjoy trying to interpret two guys with so much experience and info. I run Klipsch Forte IIIs with a PrimaLuna Prologue Premium Integrated Tube Amp. I have Amazon HD and an old Sansui SR-737 with Ortofon Bronze cartridge. I never really think about “accuracy” when listening but when I finally got my turntable really dialed in I prefer vinyl all day if it’s a good pressing. That tells me I’m ok with the “distortion” factor and not worried about the last 0. I just enjoy what I have. I do have an old Denon POA-2400A power amp that I had hooked up with a Harman Kardon Citation 25 Preamp that is absolutely brilliant for the $185 bucks total I spent on both used. I’ve kept both for future listening. Thanks again for the video!
How are you a "bottom feeder". I would think that you love to listen to the system you have. So you are an "audiophile" (loves to listen) as much as the next guy.
Steve, Great interview. As in PLEASE do MORE of these. I learn so much and so very Grateful. Thank you.
One of the best conversations I've heard about hifi notwithstanding Steve's shift in and out of the space-time continuum. Thanks again for sharing these insights. Yes, happiness in listening to music is what it's all about.
It's good to hear from Herb Reichert again, Steve. I always learn something(s) from your informal conversations.
Yes I miss Herb. Great Zoom meeting, very informative. Thank you!
Hi Steve,
It's always a treat seeing herb talk! This guy relates to folks and has so many stories he could hold a captive audience talking about anything! Keep it up! Thank you herb and steve !
Loved......."I don't understand accuracy, it makes no sense to me".
Me neither! It sounds good or it doesn't.
Loved even more....."Measurements can tell you the difference between a bad speaker and a good speaker but only listening will tell you the difference between a good speaker and a great speaker".
Michael Rubey the line you loved even more is unbelievably great ..
love this guys... give me passion... give me messy...
give me emotion and musicality! 🚀🚀🛸🛸
These backgrounds are hilarious... I couldn’t stop cracking up. But these conversations are REAL GOLD !
Herb is onto something here about the air and top end with class-d vs class-a. I also several times heard many recordings with class-d equipment where all the reverb, aesthetics and high frequency bells totally got censored away and replaced with nothing making the experience cold/weird/unsettling. You can hear it in a small degree with Allan Taylors "color to the moon" On a normal system you only hear the bell in the the first 5-10 seconds. But with top class-a watt gear, you hear the bell throughout the entire song very clearly.
It is a weird thing.
Hmmm, not sure about that as (at least) I can hear that bell ringing throughout the song with my H/K 630 and Pioneer CS-E900 speakers (both in very good condition as they've been thoroughly serviced, re-capped, etc). So I'm quite sure that there are many other non-class A setups too that can do that.
Yup... Sometimes you hear is what u hear.. I had many many "arguments" about this. Stage blah blah..punch blah blah.class d different class a. This and that.. Art and herb is a different listener for instance.. Art dont bother about placement as much as Herb more of a tone saturation guy.. Herb is more about completeness of music emotions.. Grandeur and stage.. That's why he is one of my favorite reviewer
. Completeness. I love Steve for being goofy Steve and witty steve
Accuracy isn't about being a detective and investigating what's in the recording. Accuracy is about pulling more detail out of the music because it sounds better. Isn't it? Steve, excellent discussion!
Thanks for this informative and interesting interview with Herb, very grateful for that, Steve. It's pure pleasure to listen to your wisdom and philosophy about this theme. Thanks a lot, keep up your great work and stay healthy 😊
Steve and Herb two sensible audiophiles and reviewers
Wow. Learning has never been so much fun. Thanks!
Great input guys! I have been tweeking horn speakers lately,and having a blast!! I built some 6 1/2 in two ways that centered on piano,female vocals.(hardest to get right!).I achieved it.audiophile friends said"too much!too much info!!" I wanted to hear her sweat while she sang! Herb,your right when describing audiofiles that want everything neat and tidy! Music is never like that live!
I just found your channel and I LOVE your content. Very informative
Thanks!!
Great to hear more of the Yiddish vocabulary getting into the audiophile world: Herb’s use of Mishegoss (noun) is genius. Perhaps we need to expand the dictionary. May I suggest...
Schlep - the exact distance to your nearest bricks and mortar dealer
Ov vey - The exclamation made by an audiophile on hearing someone claim their AV receiver sounds great in stereo
Tchotchke - worthless but sentimental peripherals that make no difference to sound quality
Zaide - someone who still has vintage gear they bought in the 70s
Bissel - incremental gains that are actually just different, not better
Kibbitz - the cause of bad sounds at audio shows
Schikse - a DAC in a tube-based system
Gornischt - the ultimate black background
Mishegoss - the debate between the merits of Class A/B and Class D
Tsuris - audible noise
Nu - leave your thoughts in the comments section
Shmendrik - someone who buys retail
Mensch - a dealer with a genuine discount
Plats - someone who is looking for accuracy
Meshuggeneh - use of cables as tone controls
Sei gesund everbody
Good ones
Had to laugh at schikse :)
You forgot schmatta: Stuff you get from Best Buy
Andrew Morgan
Leonard Nimoy would have agreed....
Mennonites have a sort of "Yiddish" sounds too. Comes from hi or lo German from the old country. Believe it or not.
Three thumbs up for these lasts discussions about sound fidelity and accuracy. Thanks a lot :)
Steve I may be all alone here but I am finding your latest background screens (green screen ?) to be so distracting that I can’t focus on the review. You did have a great one today, and Herb is always fascinating. Thanks for a great interview one of your best
Right Fred, there's one set of interviews coming with the background, but after that I'll be all natural.
Yeah it was doing quite a number with your hair lol! Good interview though!
Yeah, I kept looking in the sky for the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels doing a flyby!
trains planes
Glad to see I wasn’t alone
@@trainsplanes6517 I've seen the Blue Angels twice (first time as a boy back in the 1960s when they were flying Grumman F-11 Tigers) as well as the current McDonald Douglas F/A-18 Hornets. The last time that I didn't was at an air show in Lincoln, Nebraska when the demonstration was canceled because of smoke blowing up from Kansas (mostly) from farmers burning of the stubble in their fields before spring plowing/planting in the time honored method (if you've been doing something the same way for 30 years, you're probably doing it wrong . . . but not always, viva McIntosh MC275). You need to have clear (accurate) lines of sight, especially when doing high speed convergent maneuvers. I also saw the Thunderbirds (General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons, a.k.a. Vipers) once in the late 1980s. Jets are cool.
Sack "accuracy" I audition stuff and my only criteria is if I like it.
I could listen to Herb all day, he’s the Man , Thanks for this. 😎
I used Audio Note gear because I like to listen to choirs and hear each singer as clearly as I can in a church, string sections like they are in the concert hall. I live in London and I genuinely can experience music live, be home in 45mins, put the CD and its the same! LOL
I think an accurate system is one that has no obviously detectable additions or subtractions, gets out of the way of the music and just sounds natural. An over-rich system is adding colorations at some frequencies that mask low level detail or ambience. Neither is a thin or dry clinical sound accurate that has been stripped to the bone, with no warmth. An accurate system acts like a chamealeon and just seems to change with the recording and venue. An accurate system cannot make a bad recording sound good though - a bad recording should sound bad. If your system makes everything sound OK then it probably isn't accurate and will not shine on great recordings but will be easier to live with on the whole.
I used to think the same about bad recordings versus good recordings. However, I am no longer sure what a bad recording really is. I listen to pop music, so a bad recording would be when the recording or mixing engineers didn't do their jobs right. I used to have Martin Logan SL3 speakers. Some tracks felt that the vocals seemed to be in a recording booth, and separated from the rest of the music. Some tracks, which have a lot of reverb (ie. big hall), might become overwhelming, in its interaction with the room. I used to think that they were bad recordings. I now have Legacy Audio Aeris speakers with Wavelet room correction. All of my LPs now sound great. The only one that doesn't is an Oscar Peterson LP from about 1955. I can certainly hear the difference in the sound stage from one producer to another. However, they all sound good. I do know that there is a technique called LoFi, where they use low quality input recordings, which just don't sound good. In this case, it didn't sound good to me, but that was what the producer wanted.
Great stuff guys thanks .
One of your top ten best videos.
At least the audio part was great. The video part gave me a headache.
At 3:25 HR says "the best hifi's are the ones that find it", then SG says "an less accurate speaker won't revel as much..."
Recent speaker reviews talk about speakers 'coming alive' with better electronics, so which part of the rig is most responsible for revealing what is in the recording?
Thoughts?
On my desk there is a jar full of pens...1.4mm bold tip, 1.00mm medium tip, fine and xtra fine tip. There are ball point, felt tip, and rolling ball gel tip. They all look and feel different, but none of them change the content of the written word.
Excellent discussion. Herb hits on the essential essence of it. The reproduction of low level signals. This is where the emotion lives. The room ambiance. The harmonics. The reverberation. The illusion of a natural sound.
There are so many ways to kill this information. Cross overs. Inefficient speakers. Excessive feed back. Resistors. Opamps. Filters. Transformers. Complicated circuits. Crappy resistor volume control. Poor power supplies.
The best systems are minimalist with excellent amplification devices. Triodes come to mind. High efficiency speakers with high quality first order crossovers or maybe no crossover. They may not measure well, but they will sound awesome.
Thanks Steve, it was awesome to meet Herb (also my father's name). What a wonderful life - hifi in Brooklyn.
Wow! How insightful...conversations like this justify CZcams. Thanks Steve/Frank.
Thank-you Steve and Herb Herbert. Great thought provoking discussion. At this point in my learning journey I'm thinking very low to full volume absolute waveform phase accuracy over an extended frequency bandwidth seems to be the goal. As suggested during the discussion, minimizing "subtractive distortion" AKA maintaining the nuance "absolute phase purity" of a waveform seems to be the challenge for audio designers. I also agree that vintage 70's / 80's class A amps still seem impressively good at doing this.
for a time I thought that Steve was not the typical stuffy audiophile. The more I watch, though, the more it becomes clear that he is part of the club. The most annoying part of it is that he never addresses any of his fundamental assumptions. "It's more like being there," he says. This is an assumption that underpins a lot of his videos and yet he never defends it. Why should the purpose of a system be to replicate some (mythical) live experience? Steve seems to base his life around this, yet he doesn't really examine it. At the very least he could admit that his tenets for audiophilia are really just grounded in his own taste, but I guess you get kicked out of the club if you admit that.
So true! Who always has to be there. I wasn't there when they were making Michael Jackson's Thriller album but it's still great!🤪🤯🤓 And no one else was there either because it was recorded in a studio!🤪🤯
"The energy of atmosphere"...yeah! that's the stuff that differentiates the great from the good. Great way to put it.
I *DO* miss Herb! And thanks to Herb, I now love Mel Tormé's tidal wave of tone!
Interesting to listen to Steve and Herb share their thoughts.
As for me, I learned a long time ago that my journey, no matter what particular one it may be at the moment, is my journey, and mine alone. That doesn't mean that no one may be along, but that just means they are experiencing that journey in their own way. It's personal. And no two are exactly alike. So I'll enjoy my journey my way, and I'll let you enjoy your journey in your way.
It was a pleasure meeting Herb at CanJam a few months ago.
Great discussion but better for me because it provided a picture of Herb Reichert's Altec Lansings which are allegedly housed in red refrigerators. My source for this is Herb's 1999 review of the Spendor SP 1/2s for Listener magazine (Steve Guttenberg also had a review in that issue.) That review is my all-time favorite piece of audio writing. Mr. Reichert, as Herbie the minibus driver might say, you, Sir, are "Coolacious". BTW, I am the owner of Spendor BC1s and found out after a move and to my great dismay that your take on the Spendors performing much better in a small or medium-sized room was spot on (sob).
Great info with the special effects of Dr Who in 1966! Have Herb on more, Steve!
Excellent episode. Big thanks to both of you and I dig the virtual background. The way I judge a system... If listening to my favorite music on a particular system makes me feel the urge to get up and dance, tap my toes to the beat or move to the music in any way, it's a good system. Accuracy is great but if I'm not feeling it, what's the point?
Strictly speaking of Classical music and Jazz, accuracy is (in my mind..) achieved when, a violin _sounds_ like a violin, an oboe like an oboe and a piano ...you guessed it, like a piano.
In a darkened room, I listen to a saxophone player. Can I get fooled to believe the sax player is there in the room?
_That_ is accuracy IMHO.
......
Good day Herb! Great to see and hear you here. I hope we see more of you in Steve's channel.
How do you know if the violin was a Stradivari, Steiner, Guarnieri, Amati, Hopf or Suzuki? They all sound different. Judging accuracy without knowing the instrument is simply chasing one's tail.
@@gurdyman1
Fair question!
Not being gifted with playing a violin, I wouldn't even know that, even if I heard the performance in a concert hall, (unless of course it's pointed out to me).
I can usually tell if it's a modern instrument or a period one but, that's about it.
So, as long as the sound I get to hear convinces me _it is a violin_ that for me is an accurate reproduction of a violin
Thanks for the response and for challenging my brain though. : -)
And we love these discussions .. tons of information .. lots i have NO idea what it means .. but i google the terms and the models of gear to read .. BUt these casual conversations are just amazing .. more more more more
Very worthwhile discussion.
I like how Steve Force projected himself into some alleyway in the Bronx.
Thank you for 86ing the green screen. Isn’t HR the best? Thanks for having him on, Steve!
great stuff.
I don't claim to be an expert on the high end industry or electronics or speaker design. But I do appreciate precision in talking about things, and I've always found that if people try to use clear and mutually understood terms a lot of seemingly intractable arguments disappear. That said, the fact that absolute accuracy is impossible does not mean it should not be a goal, since like Zeno's paradox, while we may never reach it, we can always get closer. And I think _closer_ is what we really value as people who critically appreciate reproduced music. But we may not always understand each other when we talk about it.
There are a number of different aural cues that humans can use to identify a sound. These cues are more fundamental than, and in combinations produce audiophile perceptions like "sound stage", "precise placement of instrument images", "image depth", "space between instruments", etc. There are limits, in terms of cost, design skill and knowledge, and the physics of both the equipment and the listening environment that prevent a design from supplying all the necessary cues project a perfectly accurate reproduction of any, let alone all, original musical events.
This is why different and equally "good" designs for electronics or loudspeakers can sound different. One design was using a different balance or even a few other kinds of aural cues than the other. In that case, it doesn't make sense to ask which is "right", except as a matter of your particular preference for, or habit of attending to the particular cues that a design emphasizes.
But a design that is not good, is one that produces too few cues or a balance of cues so skewed that most people recognize that the perception of sound it produces is simply wrong...it is too inaccurate to be worth the money, time and effort.
As for Steve's question about the source of that ultimately unreachable goal of "accuracy," it's been part of critical high end or high fidelity journalism from the very beginning:
"Audio actually used to have a goal: perfect reproduction of the sound of real music performed in a real space. That was found difficult to achieve, and it was abandoned when most music lovers, who almost never heard anything except amplified music anyway, forgot what "the real thing" had sounded like. Today, "good" sound is whatever one likes...fidelity is irrelevant to music. Since the only measure of sound quality is that the listener likes it, that has pretty well put an end to audio advancement, because different people rarely agree about sound quality. [...] Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [...] For the record: I never, ever claimed that measurements don't matter. What I said (and very often, at that) was, they don't always tell the whole story. Not quite the same thing."
---J. Gordon Holt, the founding father of Stereophile magazine and high end audio journalism (2007)
www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1107awsi/
Always good to hear you and Herb chewing the fat, as it were. In fact, I enjoy all of the bull sessions you have with other viewers, but Herb’s in a class by himself.
Great discussion keep it up Steve I’m not going anywhere
Accuracy is the pinnacle of subjectivity.
Hah! I don't suppose you'd appreciate it if I hit the thumbs up twice - but a particularly enjoyable discussion gentlemen, thank you. "Accuracy" seems a funny term when artifice is a big part of most recording practice, but I certainly value those spatial cues and detailed textures highly.
Great quote at the end, "Measurements can tell the difference between a bad speaker and a good speaker, but only listening can tell us the difference between a good speaker(amp) and a great speaker(amp)."
Specs of an amp or speaker can tell you if they are at least in the 'good' category, but ultimately we are all in this hobby to 'listen' so if your ears aren't happy, specs don't mean a thing. And perfect specs won't tell you that your ears will be happy either. Sometimes I think our ears like a little coloration here and there. And as we age and our hearing changes, so might our taste in what we find pleasing to them.
As a guy who lived (survived?) 8-track tapes, I know what INaccurate sound is like. I relate to Herb’s “electrons bouncing off the church wall” concept of micro-information. That’s a plea for even greater accuracy, not less. But there’s little doubt that intense musical enjoyment can be had with today’s mid-fi, arguably less accurate systems. So at the point where my budget hits accuracy achievement, I turn into a subjectivist.
Did I just drop acid? Am I halucinating when I see Steve? I think I'm peaking! Oh wait! Herb looks normal. Oh no Steve's back! What the hell is happening to me????
Those Class A power amps also make great space heaters.
I have a pair of the first amp they showed. They are lousy space heaters.
My 2 watt DECware class A SET does a lousy job of hearing spaces
Atkinson quote is elegant. Fit to purpose is a phrase that helps me reframe conversations around preference. A little bluetooth device may not give me what I want from a speaker but my farmer and woodworker family and friends like the functionality. I'd have loved those when I was 19, bring it to the garage, to the lake, so fun. I would never speak of my gear as better with them, it is immature and of no benefit to anyone. When I do mention my gear I welcome visitors and we have fun. That's sufficient for me. Now, I am trying to resist that pricey (for me) Audioquest power cable for my Rogue Sphinx V3. More Steve and Herb please.
I think of accuracy in music, is similar to accuracy from a photograph. There’s a lot you can do to both. They both look and sound different to each individual.
Accuracy is impossible. If you define “accurate” as hearing the recording the way the artist and producer intended, then the only way to be accurate is if you had the exact equipment and room setup as they did in the mixing studio. The best you can do is hope for accuracy.
Luis Puncel and their ears and brains
You can almost never know what the artist and producer “intended.” You are heading down a wormhole.
It may not be possible in terms of what the artist heard or intended, but with the right gear, one can get very close to an accurate rendering of what's actually in the source/record.
The contention comes from the fact that most-accurate is not always most pleasing.
rotorfix yes I agree. I recall way back when, so called boom and sizzle speakers with exaggerated highs and lows. Very impressive at first hearing but with little balance..mid range became incredibly fatiguing. Some recordings are poorly mixed to same effect through your balanced home speakers. Also rarely mentioned are timbre and sonic signature. The sound of a bow across a violin or cello etc palpable percussion the various layers in a voice. An immediacy arealness the recording through your system.
it is accurate enough if acoustic instruments sounds like you are in the room with the instrument being played.
I understand people that want it more correct/accurate because a lot of tube sound is really flabby/inaccurate/closed in/limited. A good clock and good parts and good power fixes that. It's almost impossible to get a good clock function on tube gear, whereas with transistor it's almost impossible to get good parts. (transistor usually has better clock control)
But both can sound good at the top level and give the impression of having all the sound aspects at a very high level. (once you have a really good clock, the music gets more solid and the harshness dissapears and the timing get's insanely good)
We have a very serious disease, and there is no cure in sight.The reality of being a true audiophile is that this is as good as it gets. I feel like I am stuck between yesterday and tomorrow, everyday. Hope that makes sense.
Love both yous
Bleedthrough, did someone say early Zeppelin...
Most recordings are done dry, and added effects later. That is why a recording done under wet conditions often are more lifelike, because it sounds more natural. A live recording in a grand hall where some of the reverbs there at in the recording will sound more natural than artificially added reverbs in post. But you must add some reverb to add the illusion of natural sound. That is why a recording of a acoustic concert sounds so good, because some of the natural reverbs are still in there, because most instruments is recorded wet. Maybe only a solo instrument has close microphone in those circumstances.
Our own ears can fool us into things that aren't there. I remember listening to some recording (can probably be found somewhere on the net) where they were experimenting with test tones and it was easy to make a sound seem like it was only in the right channel when in reality it came from the left channel.
Steve, this video makes you look like you have flowing hair! LOL
Great discussion.
To me, a recorded / reproduced performance is somewhat like the relationship between acting and cinematography. The performance is an art and the recording is an art.
The playback of either is an art/technology and what we hear is the entire performance. It takes it all.
Electric guitar players play the amp and the guitar.
Accuracy to me is not the game, what is the game is the synergistic result that hits your ears.
Pass me another beer.
I like the words “transparency” or “revealing” instead of “accuracy.”
John Lower , OK..... Since we do not know each other, I do not get your context or comedy here. Did you watch the vid?
Great interview. I was never really a true audiophile but am perusing the best sound for me ( on a budget).
I have to agree that specs only get you part way there and listening does the rest. I recall articles in Stereophile magazine where they would first give you the specs then the listening impressions. Often they didn’t seem to relate. I think our brains have this uncanny ability to focus on different aspects of the music. To zero in on some things and filter out others. Sort of like how a good car mechanic can identify a bad lifter in an engine just by listening to the cacophony of noise coming from it. No sound analyzer can do that as far as I know.
Your messy background reminds me of mine. I like it. Fake backgrounds look like fake backgrounds.
Herb is so much cooler than we are!!!
So accuracy would that be the same as inner detail?? I'm always after inner detail and sound stage and dynamics. I have an old school 52 lb class D amp designed by John Ulrich that really makes my Maggie's. 0.7's come alive with all it's power with amazing energy and lots of nuances that I find pretty darn close the the real event. Now taking into consideration, my ARC LS15 tube pre amp and Exogal Comet DAC helps things along. Could it be better, probably, but wow! what would I have to spend.
More with Herb please. Make it a regular segment if possible..
I could listen to you 2 talk audio all day!
I think accuracy is subjective. To me accuracy means more detailed, but it comes with a trade off - it loses its spaciousness.
I’m neither for nor against “accuracy”, whatever that might be...but I do love the idea of my system actually portraying what the recording artist wanted the world to hear when they were making the record...just a thought
Great discussion - apart from the background doing very scary things to Steve's hair! Accuracy - the hint is in the name "hi-fidelity". We want what comes out of our speakers or headphones to sound faithful to the instrument (to the extent there is one) being recorded. A transistor radio plays a tune and that's fine if you're a bricklayer working on a building site, but if you are a hi-fi person (i.e. audiophile) you want to hear the sounds that entered the microphone as unmolested as possible, subject of course to the artistic decisions of the mastering engineer. For me, the benchmark is tonality - does that piano sound like a piano? And ideally, does it sound like a Bosendorfer rather than a Yamaha? And then, totally agree that those micro details (the reverb or ambient info) adds to the illusion of actually being there which makes it more emotionally satisfying. The more of that, the better. So yes, to me "accuracy" is important although I agree it can't really be judged through numbers and measurements.
Gian Paolo Gliori I would go further and say it can’t be judged at all because we have no benchmark to judge it by - only our subjective opinion of what the original probably sounded like.
Steve - where do shop? I want to get me some of those shirts!
Accuracy is what I like.
Funny how audiophiles want accurate, but none of them want studio monitors in the system, which is what they used to make the music.
Right, but if all studio monitors are accurate, why don't they all sound exactly the same?
You would have to purchase whatever monitor they used to produce each record to hear accurately what the musicians and producers heard, lol
Monitor companies would love this.@@SteveGuttenbergAudiophiliac
Back in 1986 when Midi's rules were still being written and I owned a Kurzweil Keyboard and wanted to be 'Mike Oldfield at least via independent of lots of draw backs to my pedestrian approach to making DEMOS. I Noticed something that made me 'give up all of it' simply because it all sounded sorta of Mechanical, Dry, lifeless or airless in perfection.
3 years and about 100,000 pre-1990 dollars made almost NO MUSIC, because of the above in part & the endless worry about making everything perfect I couldn't get in a small studio in a small town with mostly drug addicts and drunks.... Now I love smoking Pot, but as ' Hoyt Axton' said, "I've smoked a lot of pot and did a lot of pills, but I never did nothing that my 'Spirit' could't kill.'
.... that said all my high dollar high tech seemed like holographs that became more visible and more easily controlled, but you always knew if you were sensitive to music that it was FAKE MUSIC (lol,) and that is VERY HARD FOR ME TO SAY.... since my philosophy about music is, "If you don't understand the music your listening to, it's not the Music, it's YOU.
REGROUP: I had some of the best equipment in the world for that time. I called MIT and spoke to Ray and Ray's colleagues which eventually lead me to 'Applelink, that became AOL where I helped to create some of the way that people communicate with others around the world.
What was missing 'even if you sampled any true source' was the people and the source came from a box (and all the best of minds that invented them) does not mean it's output is human to our ears.
As I get older I get Poorer, so I don't have the best equipment and I honestly admit 30 plus years a lot could change in those 'boxes' creating music. Certainly the Technical Musicians are as amazing as they were at any time when freedom of creation and a crowd willing to subsidized artist has existed. I Risk my credibility, but I have no friends or anyone now to talk about arts or my work, so the problem is AIR.
.... there is no air between clapping blocks of wood when most Sounds are Generated and recorded DIRECT out of the BOX. What kind of BOX you have is not as important as you call it the 'Little Bits' that are lost correcting all the imperfections that reproduction inherently, how ever perfect;y done, can't recreate - the sound of chaos.
I think (knowing that it's being tried) you'd have to build an Atom Smasher Speaker and Amp to control all the 'Little Bits' to get perfection. - m
Good information. Listening to people, I think the concept of accuracy is blurred with detail and clean sound. Not necessarily interchangeable.
Tidiness? I like things tidy because untidiness is a distraction (some people are better at tuning this out than others - I'm not one of them). So when there is a lot of distorted crap coming off a LP due to scratches or wear then it distracts me from the music. Except, if the vinyl front end is good enough, the music is so vivid (full of details and with plenty of impact) then the threshold for the distortion spoiling it is way higher. Digital gives a false sense of tidy - it all sounds very clean but lots may be missing, or digital distortion is making things sound hard, or dry or whatever - harder to spot than a scratch on a LP or hiss on a tape as it's there all the time and changes the character of the sound rather than intruding noticeably. Reality check - last night I (kind of by accident) watched Prince performing on CZcams with a wire from the headphone output on my TV to my hi-fi. The sound was ok but not a match for my hi-fi front ends. But...seeing Prince perform live, his stage antics and facial expressions...totally brought it to life and made me interact on a very emotional level with the music. And that's from someone who doesn't really like Prince's music that much. Is that missing detail somehow analogous to what you get from seeing a performer, sort of filling in the gaps?
Great discussion, it contains a lot of food for thought. In recent years, I haves seen a growing dichotomy about system accuracy within the hobby and myself. I crave the intense resolution of a revealing system. Love the thrill of hearing something I never heard before off a recording. However, as much fun as that is, I know that is not what real music sounds like.
When attending a live concert, I have yet to hear whether or not the classical guitarist just manicured his/her nails. Something a highly resolving system can give you the illusion of. So likewise, I do question what is truly accurate?
In terms of currently produced speakers a lot of the highly resolving, so called accurate designs roll off the bass too aggressively. They do not have the ability to reproduce the low notes some instruments are capable of. For me, it is like viewing a Rembrandt with a magnifying glass. You see the wonder/beauty of each paint stroke, but at times not a full view of the entire piece.
My choice for main speakers would not be considered highly accurate/detailed. Since they are not bass shy, you could argue that they are more for HT use than music listening.
Nonetheless, when playing a large orchestral pieces through them. I can hear just how low a Cello can go, that there are Bassoons present, and the Bass drum rumble the room. Despite their limitations, they can recreate a believable facsimile of the performance, every instrument, every note played.
Ha SG is in Max Headroom mode!
the man with the plan!
Idc so much about accuracy, rather I like having different flavors. But I care a great deal about revealing power, clarity.
This is a great discussion by two relatively unpretentious audio experts. As a recording engineer, I would love to be making recordings for people like them. Unfortunately most people are hearing music through white plastic things with or without wires stuck sloppily in their ears. This is what makes high levels of compression and limiting necessary. One advantage I have is doing my critical listening through the same amp and speaker setup for years. I can't imagine trying to make judgments about sound when you're listening through a different system every week. I'm sure these gentlemen enjoy their work but I couldn't comfortably judge anything that way. If I were to do that job, I couldn't give grades it would just be pass fail.
Some thoughts on accuracy:
Accuracy may be hard to define, but you can learn to know it when you hear it. Accuracy and resolution are not the same.
The opposite of accuracy is distortion. When you hear a system that initially sounds good but eventually starts to grate, that is euphonic distortion revealed.
Regarding playback distortion and average recordings: Two wrongs doesn't make a right.
listen, listen, listen... You can hear the difference.
Just keep in mind that distortion can be reproduced accurately.
I prefer your videos w/ your apt in the background.
Mishigas........I love it !
Nonlinear response to low level signals can be a source of "subtractive distortion." Conversely, compression can be a source of what I will call "additive distortion." Many people prefer additive distortion. It is one reason some like very low power tube amplifiers that "soft clip" or compress the loud parts of the signal.
Steve could you turn up the volume please. It's pretty quiet. Anyway thanks for yours discussion!