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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Aporia - Silbatone Acoustics speaker
Post Subject: Buddhist, dudePosted by Joe Roberts on: 1/25/2009
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Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy a good pizza. Unfortunately I won't find one in a Pizzahut. "That" man's 2 for 1 pleasure says a lot about his evaluating capabilities...
I also enjoy several different kinds of music, mostly acoustic, but enjoying music and evaluating a system's performance are two completely different tasks.


Tuga, this notion assumes a universal standard. The Pizza Hut listeners were evaluating performance, only by a different standard than you or I use. I am not even sure what it was, but their amazement at the blue mini-towers seemed genuine.

So, who am I to argue or criticize? In a discussion such as this, of course, my point is obviously dialed for the experienced listener who knows the tricks employed and probably looking for something else,  but if I stood up during that boom boom demo and said "Wait, this bass SUCKS! This man is a charlatan!!" Where is the value in that?

I would deserve to be ignored and rebuked, because I would be criticising them for not achieving something that they were obviously not trying to do, and apparently they were sucessful in their chosen endeavor and reaching the audience which they sought to reach.


the fact that you shot into this target for 30 years makes mater not more respectable but more laughable from my point of view.


Romy, my claim of too long experience, dealing with many listeners and perspectives, does not imply that I know more about audio, only that at this point I have a very good idea of how I think of individual audio goals in the larger picture of possible approaches and perspectives.

I do not believe that I can call myself an expert in any way except in this field of anthropological study. I am only a mid-level electronics hacker and, at this point, not as picky about my sound sources as I used to be. Probably can't hear as well as I used to if my eyesight is any indication. I wasted my youth trying tons of gear, so I have an idea of the basic capabilities of the technology, yet I freely admit that many have taken these possibilites far beyond where I myself have gone.

I think I know a lot about how people use and think about audio systems in the context of various projects in which they use systems to accomplish whatever goals they create. Go ahead and laugh...that is another data point confirming my research.

I can't always know the goals and I certainly can't and don't need to share everyman's goals, but I can recognize that goals and tastes are indeed individual. My point about musical enjoyment as the goal allows for exercise of different perogatives, cultural perspectives, and tastes in music, and makes sense as a general characterization of what people do audio work to achieve.

You might consider this a lowest common denominator, but I argue against the "lowest" label. What makes any particular goal higher, beyond the goal-owners high opinon of himself, his own preferences, and his listening acumen?

This is the old "evolution leads to me" argument, which looks silly when it is recognized that many and perhaps most societies have a similar theory.

Besides, I believe that listening enjoyment in itelf is a high goal. Otherwise, why bother with all this ugly audio junk but for enjoyment?

So, this elaborate "external vs internal audio scheme" which incidentally was addressed to a large extent in the 1980s TAS jibber-jabber about imaging and is nothing new or revolutionary, does not have any claim to universality or a higher realm of achievement.

If you think it does, kneel down to your holy prophet, Harry Pearson and kiss the smelly Bierkenstock.

He is your god and you probably don't know it yet.

Did you actually read 1980s TAS or just thought sniff it? I think I know the answer.

Yeah, he had the "more evolved" thing going too. Conned a lot of people into listening to things they didn't really like, trying to find their place in heaven. That was the sociological downside.

The concepts of imaging and soundstaging have been generalized and bastardized since, but TAS was trying to piece together a phenomenological program not unlike the Romy doctrine. The problem they had is that some of the writers went overboard with literal borrowing from visual metaphor and lost the thread. Then these words became generalized stupid terms without any qualification or specific reference, which led us to where we are today in the terminology.

Maybe you add a few details and some different language, but the core is inherited. For me, it is just one of many strange and obscure things that crazy people demand from audio reproduction.

Now, here's a story relevant to the topic of "internal audio." When I was recording the Phila. Orchestra, EMI came in to do a recording. I tried but can no longer remember the music. This was around 1984-1985. They wanted us (we were the recording division of WFLN-FM) to do some sound tests and place mikes around the hall for ambience tracks that they could mix in.

Well, I decided I would record right along with them so I flew a Neumann stereo mic from the ceiling 20 feet in front of the stage straight into a Studer two track. EMI hooked up a lot of mics. They had omnis sprinked throughout the orchestra, some kind of mic arrangement on a tree at the front of the stage, a giant mixing board, and they monitored on B&W 801s that arrived in huge anvil cases.

I got to compare my recording with EMIs first mix. My technique, which I worked out after numerous recordings, was a mix of event perspective (hall perspective) and stage perspective. it was not super up front nor distant. Worked good for radio broadcast. Made you feel like you were at the Academy.

The EMI did more of what you seem to be highlighting....more movement through the winds, spotlights on different sections. It was more "internal" and less soundstage oriented. In fact, there was not a hall impression very much.

My colleagues and I listened to the tape then compared ours. We liked ours because it sounded like the Orchestra in the Academy of Music, an effect we knew and liked. We thought that the EMi recording was cheap and sensational, although it was quite impressive.

No actual listener could ever achieve either of these perspectives, but the "individual horizon" presented by our single mic was more natural and realistic. The EMI was a technological artifact and an invented perspective.

Which one captured the musical intention of Muti better? It seems you might say EMI. If this is the case, how could Muti's intention forsee this unnatural 12 mic configuration that yielded the "imaging without soundstage" effect? Wouldn't the simple stereo mic configuration represent what Muti would expect listeners in the seats to hear and possibly be closer to what he himself heard?

Just so you know, I like your evaluation program. Seems like you can have a lot of fun with it and it certainly frames your audio experiments in a challenging and potentially fruitful groove, though limited, arbitrary, and incomplete like any other perspective.

As for "higher" level, check your tie for spit. This is a higher order of navel gazing perhaps.

Reminds me of reading Husserl as a student. It is indeed rewarding in a masturbatory way to deconstruct perception, but this can only be achieved outside of the flow of aesthetic experience. To listen to music you have to let this highly unnatural and picayune mode of analysis go and flow with the experience--or at least that's the way I feel about it.

Step back and think how obscure and meaningless for most listeners this concept of "external audio" is. This is not a mark of superiority but a sign that you are so far down in the hole that you are not seeing the larger picture of audio experience only the walls of your tunnel. But it is your tunnel and if are comfortable in it, that is what matters.

As I mentioned, I have come to be in contact with many audiophiles in my career. The distinction I draw among them is happy ones and ones who are neurotic and suffering. Anything that leads to happiness and enjoyment to me is valid and anything that causes tension and pain is evil.

One reason I am "retired" is that I grew weary of the neurotic ones, because I am not cut out to be a shrink. Fortunately, the mindset I tried to promote with Sound Practices allowed me to meet many happy audio pilgrims and these very fulfilling experiences and the joy in working with happy people directly contributed to my philosophy outlined here.

J Rob

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