GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

Audio For Dummies ™
Topic: Interesting Statement

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Posted by Romy the Cat on 01-02-2005

The commonly accepted in audio notion that different types of equipment more suited for one or another type of music is based on a very faulty premise. If your playback equipment does not discriminate “good music” and “bad music” (and there are many ways to do it) then your playback is not high-end audio but just an expensive piece of electro-mechanical junk. A proper playback should play better (audio-wise) better music and should play “bad” music very poorly. The increasing level of this discrimination, sort of pre-filtering of musicality by audio, is the only one reason to improve your playback systems. Do not discard the said as foolishness: this is very loaded statement and you sometimes in future might get it.

Posted by Doron on 08-18-2009

I am beginning to somewhat agree with this statement as I am always amazed how selective an audio system gets as it becomes a high-resolution one.
Rock and pop never sounds good anymore (because the system just tells it like it is).

However there is some well recorded garbage (to my taste) out there.
One can argue that a well recorded fart might not sound good after all :-)
And than some of the scratchy old Duke Ellington recordings is charming to me (my bad) regardless of it being mono and sounding scratchy. Maybe when you like the music so much you forgive the recording and go with the flow.

What do you think?

Posted by Romy the Cat on 08-18-2009

Doron wrote:
I am beginning to somewhat agree with this statement as I am always amazed how selective an audio system gets as it becomes a high-resolution one. Rock and pop never sounds good anymore (because the system just tells it like it is).

It sound as your payback is coming out of a closet.

Doron wrote:
And than some of the scratchy old Duke Ellington recordings is charming to me (my bad) regardless of it being mono and sounding scratchy. Maybe when you like the music so much you forgive the recording and go with the flow.

Actually, it is irrelevant example. The “scratchy recordings” is not a definition of bad quality by default. The true “quality” is much more complex entity.

The caT

Posted by Doron on 08-18-2009

The truth of the matter is that I believe that true quality has nothing do with audio systems, high resolution or otherwise.
How many good musicians are audiophiles? and does it matter?
They can listen via an Internet Radio and enjoy as the music is in their head.
In fact many so-called high end systems are almost an obstacle to their gear-head owners in even enjoying real music.
So busy are they with this cable and that power conditioner and a $5K cartridge that they forgot what this hobby is all about. Their cart is in front of their horses.

Posted by Axel on 08-18-2009

with using a rubbish system and the like some dilly music-maker pretend it's in my head and fine.

I want to feel the venue where things are happening in, it means scale, depth, RIGHT tone, timing, AND as much as possible harmonic completeness. The less of all this the more it sounds like some pocket transistor radio. Once you have heard what is possible there is no way back.

If you been walking all the time and then discovered a bicycle you don't want to go without it anymore.

The issue with high-resolution is that it often does that ONLY, and most everything else is then taken for granted --- which it is of course NOT.

Systems like these will plain scare me out of the listening room because they are ABSOLUTELY CORRUPTING.
Cheers,
Axel

Posted by Doron on 08-18-2009

Nothing wrong with feeling the venue (although I think that feeling the venue can only be had by going to "the venue" - the venue can never and should not be attempted to be recreated as an audio goal in my mind - unless you want to be frustrated with the shortcomings of your system that is).
What I am getting at is that the essence of the music, the substance and the content are the most important matters.
So many so-called audiophiles are stuck in the "tuning their systems" stage that they forgot to enjoy music. They hardly listen to a complete piece of music.
Many of them listen to "high-end" sample disks with eclectic collections of well recorded audio garbage that is supposedly a reference tool to test and fine-tune their system instead of enjoying music at face value.
This defeats the purpose in my mind.

I agree that a high-resolution system enables you a more readily and streamlined emotional connection with the music and perhaps allows for a greater focus on the music and greater overall enjoyment, same as going to an acoustical, un-amplified concert in a venue with good acoustics. There are less veils and barriers between you and the music (and hence less fatigue as the brain does not have to work hard completing the missing details).

Posted by Axel on 08-19-2009

OK, and that relates to your observation of 'not enjoying the music for the tuning' of the system, and not being able to listen to one piece of music at the time --- I think it is also called "Audio-Nervosa".

As far as the venue is concerned, it is part and parcel of a performance! Want to listen to Mahler played in the closet?! Want to listen to a piece of music written for FULL orchestra played by a chamber ensemble? Surely not.
If I'd take your approach literally, I only need the sheet-music, and play it all in my head - the rest is superfluous and only adds BS to the real sonic experience. Agreed, if I were Mozart it might work for me just fine, lucky enough I'm not his type of genius (I'd be long dead...)

Lastly these 'high-end' folks you have quoted are in the wrong game (and quite some are) they aught to be acoustic-hobbyists rather, since their aim is not music as you say, but only sound-performance. They only listen to snippets of music because it is less annoying then listening to a sign-wave generator - fair enough.

However, if you DO listen to music it needs a high degree of 'something' in order to make real sense, revealing intrinsic content.
Listen to Ravel, Mahler, Beethoven, or even some beautifully played solo instrument with a 'wanting' replay-rig you have just turned it all into 'elevator music', and that's why I have some disagreement, begged to differ, with what you said.
Greetings,
Axel

Posted by Doron on 08-19-2009

I think you got spoiled with a lifelike sound reproducing music system (lifelike to your ears and in your brain - some systems do approach that level but than something else is lost like the festivity of getting dressed and going to a concert of your favorite composer/piece, the excitement and the charged atmosphere in the hall, etc. etc.)
Can you enjoy music listening to your car stereo? In a shopping mall (Jazz piece played in Macy's)? In a Train Station like the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC_t7g0nzLQ

Yes I agree it is far from being ideal BUT it should not be a show stopper from enjoying music.
This is why I believe one should practice this hobby of audio perfectionism mildly without obsessing about it to the extent that is if it is not 100% lifelike (problematic term anyways) he refuses to listen and enjoy it.

We cannot always eat caviar (and thankfully so). Sometimes a Pizza or an Italian Panino can and should be enjoyable too and it just makes us appreciate the caviar when we do get to eat it.

Just my personal opinion.

Posted by Axel on 08-19-2009
fiogf49gjkf0d No, but frankly I do not miss it. Corrupted music has become less and less my thing --- it surely wasn't always that way. Gain something, loose something, the way of the world :-) Cheers, Axel

Posted by mjloudspeaker on 10-20-2009

Axel wrote:
No, but frankly I do not miss it. Corrupted music has become less and less my thing --- it surely wasn't always that way. Gain something, loose something, the way of the world :-)Cheers,
Axel

You must be a snob, or rich dick, NO!

Let me know, a regular JOE.

Best regards, J to you, with a CAPITOL.

Posted by mjloudspeaker on 10-20-2009

Romy the Cat wrote:
The commonly accepted in audio notion that different types of equipment more suited for one or another type of music is based on a very faulty premise. If your playback equipment does not discriminate “good music” and “bad music” (and there are many ways to do it) then your playback is not high-end audio but just an expensive piece of electro-mechanical junk. A proper playback should play better (audio-wise) better music and should play “bad” music very poorly. The increasing level of this discrimination, sort of pre-filtering of musicality by audio, is the only one reason to improve your playback systems. Do not discard the said as foolishness: this is very loaded statement and you sometimes in future might get it.

A proper playback system is redundant, obsolete, in fact completely flawed in my mind, obsolete for music enjoyment, and should be discarded or modified, until it can be a servant, and not the OWNER a slave, now we are in control, of the MUSIC EVENT AND COMPOSITIONAL ATMOSPHERICAL COMPOSITIONAL SOUND THING,

IS THE MAIN THING.

regards, j.

I NOW BELIEVE MOST ON THIS SITE BELONG TO THE IDIOT CATEGORY, romy you should recruit for the ARMY!

this site is like all others, I am going into stealth mode of audio, soon, j.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 10-20-2009

mjloudspeaker wrote:
A proper playback …. can be a servant, and not the OWNER a slave….

An interesting concept, highly debatable concept from my point of view, and it would be fun to argue it if behind the mjloudspeaker’s phrasing there was an understanding at a reasonable level. The concept servant vs. owner is revolving and it is no different than the debate of a piano or a trumpet to be servant vs. owner for a musician or a rocket to be servant vs. owner for a tennis player. I think it is all upon the level at which musician or sportsmen is developed and the level at which s/he operate piano, trumpet, rocket or playback. Staring from a certain level the sharpness of the question “servant vs. owner” is gone and the question itself becomes ridicules.

The Cat

Posted by Axel on 10-21-2009

thinks that it sees everything because it keeps its eyes open; the superior intelligence consents to shut its eyes because it sees everything within.
F. Chateaubriand

You enjoy playing tennis with a frayed racket, play golf with a bend club, play on a piano with a cracked soundboard?

Well, enjoy --- "everyone to his own taste..." , don't try correct me if I don't care for such 'entertainments', I enjoy silence of nature rather then distortion of ‘noise audio’.

Best,
Axel

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