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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: There is nothing subjective in music reproduction.
Post Subject: Thought experiments and prediction of sonic objectivismPosted by Thorsten on: 3/21/2006
[ Romy: Moved as a reply to http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=2218#2218 ]


Hi Roman,

 Romy the Cat wrote:
Let pretend that a group of 1000 people have an imaginary ultimate 1000000-bands equalizer, the one that do nothing negative to sound besides juts EQ the amplitude. We take music, EQ if up and down randomly and then let those people to de-EQ it back. Anyone among with those 1000 people who are familiar with the way how life music impacts them will painlessly adjust that EQ and will end up with very much identically final outcome, means their Sounds will be fundamentally the same. Others will set up their own sounds to reflect their or cultural and musical corruptions - they will be somebody whom I call the Morons ™ and I always question what they do in audio.


While what you present is an admirable thought experiment, I can assure you that the premise you posit:

"people who are familiar with the way how life music impacts them will painlessly adjust that EQ and will end up with very much identically final outcome"

is absolutely and conclusively untrue. It is even untrue for a more or less ideal head-related recording made from a normal listening position in the hall and played back via excellent Koss or Stax ESL Headphones.

Some of the worst offenders in "bending the response" will in fact be people who regulary attend ive music BUT who regulary sit in places very much different from that where the recording was made.

In short, your posited premise is untrue, completely and absolutely so, even with what one might term near  ideal recordings.

Using the much less ideal recordings made for speaker stereophony and equalised and adjusted to the Conductors, Producers and Mastering Engineers taste all bets are off. Surprisingly conductors often seem to have as often as not no idea what the orchestra and instruments really sound like, even from the podum, judging by the kind of EQ application they often insist(ed) upon (Karajan was often a major offender).

So Roman, I think you need to realise that there is no "objective", "rational" or "absolute" truth in reproducing music AT THE MOMENT, there is merely a wide landscape of hugely disparate approaches that converge somewhere in the middle of the playing field, but very few people are in the middle of the playing field, many have indeed wandered off to the extemes where life is more interresting.

Ciao T

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