There is nothing holy about the signal

[Mart68]

You don't think compression applied in mastering is distortion? "Signal integrity" is a complete joke at every level of the recording chain. We can have it in the electronics of the playback chain (dac, amp, etc), agreed on that, but then speakers throw all that integrity out the window.

Not sure what you mean about recordings being made using speakers, that's quite unusual in the literal sense. There were (and are) some amazing analogue effects systems at the great studios of the 50s-70s, including one which used a speaker in a large chamber with a mic at the other end. Some highly praised "audiophile" recordings went through that reverb system. See the Apple TV documentary by Mark Ronson for details.

it makes no difference to us what happened in recording we can't change that. We start with the finished product and try not to wreck it too much from that point on.

High fidelity means fidelity to the recording, not some event in a studio or even a live performance. A mic doesn't hear like people nor is it in the same place as some notional person present at the recording. I mic up drums and put a mic six inches over the ride cymbal - no-one will ever listen to a ride cymbal from that position.

 

[mcdn]

it makes no difference to us what happened in recording we can't change that. We start with the finished product and try not to wreck it too much from that point on.

High fidelity means fidelity to the recording, not some event in a studio or even a live performance. A mic doesn't hear like people nor is it in the same place as some notional person present at the recording. I mic up drums and put a mic six inches over the ride cymbal - no-one will ever listen to a ride cymbal from that position.

My point is that there is never any “fidelity to the recording”. The recording has no perfect reproduction. There is no target to reach.

Play it through headphones and you need to apply a target curve. And then you have no feeling of live bass.

Play it through speakers and in the bass you will hear mostly the room, and then the speakers, and then the recording.

All of which is fine! We can enjoy these differences in reproduction once we reject the idea that one of them is “right”

 

[Mart68]

My point is that there is never any “fidelity to the recording”. The recording has no perfect reproduction. There is no target to reach.

Play it through headphones and you need to apply a target curve. And then you have no feeling of live bass.

Play it through speakers and in the bass you will hear mostly the room, and then the speakers, and then the recording.

All of which is fine! We can enjoy these differences in reproduction once we reject the idea that one of them is “right”

And my point is that there is a 'ballpark of accuracy'. So yes there is no perfect reproduction but there is a zone within which it is closer to perfect and beyond that zone it is far from perfect.

It's my view that getting within that zone matters - because otherwise too many recordings begin to sound bad and the system begins to determine what recordings we can listen to with some amount of pleasure.

In other words it's still the wild west but there is a sheriff in town. He can't be everywhere and police everything but just him being there keeps enough of a lid on things that the townsfolk can go about their business without automatically being shot and robbed.

 

[Multicore]

One of things that was excellent about Tact gear. It held 9 correction curves. I didn't use all 9 that much. I did however have 3 or 4 that you could switch between in 1 second with the remote to work for various recordings. Mostly just a warmer or leaner balance. A recording is lean, warm it up, or the reverse. So there was a learning curve and some time. However in the end it was like a very quick tonal adjustment or spectral balance control at a finger's touch. So using the system was simple and seamless. So I didn't seek improvements for individual tracks, I had a simple pallet to work with. Using Pultec plug ins is a bit more involved than that, but that device in its hardware form was pretty well conceived to make big differences with ease with only a handful of controls.

The MiniDSP Flex has 4 presets to select from using the remote. We use one of them. I've often thought of seeing up the other three but it seems like a lot of bother.

 

[Killingbeans]

The important feature of my system is that I can turn everything off with a few clicks and everything is restored to unmolested signal, with the exception of the target curve that I can not avoid because it is baked into the system.

That sounds like the Holy Grail to me

Honestly, people can do whatever they please, as long as they don't confuse personal taste with signal integrity.

If people enjoy building chains of effects boxes that makes everything sound more pleasant to them (assuming it's not placebo), then why not? But for f¤¤ks sake, stop claiming it has anything to do with high performance!

 

[Chr1]

That sounds like the Holy Grail to me

Honestly, people can do whatever they please, as long as they don't confuse personal taste with signal integrity.

If people enjoy building chains of effects boxes that makes everything sound more pleasant to them (assuming it's not placebo), then why not? But for f¤¤ks sake, stop claiming it has anything to do with high performance!

This.

Except I would replace the word "performance" with "fidelity".

 

[AdamG]

I voted all of the above. At the end of the day. It’s your music (assuming you paid for it in some fashion) adjusting to taste is fine. Your music your Audio System and you have every right to flavor to taste. I want to get maximum enjoyment out of each song I listen. I am a devout BassHead and there can never ever be too much Bass for me. Of course my tastes are derived from living abroad Ships for Many years. If you want to be a purist, go for it. Listen anyway that brings you pleasure and entertainment. Once it’s in my AOR I get to do whatever I want and there are no rules just moods and levels of intensity.

 

[fpitas]

If people enjoy building chains of effects boxes that makes everything sound more pleasant to them (assuming it's not placebo), then why not? But for f¤¤ks sake, stop claiming it has anything to do with high performance!

That's my opinion, too. Listen to a tin can on a string if you like that, just don't tell me it's somehow more accurate than good-measuring systems.

 

[fpitas]

The concept of a "target curve" for speakers is inherently problematic and widely misunderstood. The harman curves are the measured result of a small number of speakers and a small number (11) of people's preference for these.

So at best we can call them preference curves, and you were never intended to force your own system to follow them with the use of DSP.

This bears repeating. And we have whole threads of people beating their in-room curves into sonic submission. Usually with questionable return.

 

[SSS]

I don't believe on room curves whatever and who created it. Using tone controls (the analog ones on the preamp) to somewhat enhance the sound to my pleasure. Of course there is no way to reproduce the sound what was in the recording studio room hearable. If someone thinks it is possible, that is dreaming.

 

[Killingbeans]

Except I would replace the word "performance" with "fidelity".

Me too, if the word hadn't become completely obfuscated in this hobby.

 

[Chr1]

Me too, if the word hadn't become completely obfuscated in this hobby.

Except that I believe that such a system is actually "high performance" ie an accurate system, but with the ability to easily switch in VSTs, DSP, valves, or whatever. As long as they are options, I would call it high performance. Switched in, possibly not "high fidelity" however.

 

[fpitas]

If you conclude that it is OK to manipulate the signal to your preference, the very uncomfortable corollary is this: there are no standards in audio, nor can there ever be. All the preference scores in spinorama.org are moot. We are back to the Wild West where anything goes. I myself am uncomfortable with this because as a scientist at heart and by profession, I can not accept a universe of disorder and chaos.

My own answer to that is that as I approach a very flat time-gated frequency response curve with a smooth polar pattern, most of the tracks I play sound good. When I have deviated significantly, one track might be enhanced, but at the expense of others sounding bad. So, a one-trick pony. But, since you can now EQ track-by-track with things like JRiver, maybe that's workable.

 

[Killingbeans]

Of course there is no way to reproduce the sound what was in the recording studio room hearable. If someone thinks it is possible, that is dreaming.

Not to mention that a lot those studios do/did their monitoring on relatively crappy setups. It wouldn't be worth striving for.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

This bears repeating. And we have whole threads of people beating their in-room curves into sonic submission. Usually with questionable return.

To whom?

 

[Purité Audio]

My point is that there is never any “fidelity to the recording”. The recording has no perfect reproduction. There is no target to reach.

Play it through headphones and you need to apply a target curve. And then you have no feeling of live bass.

Play it through speakers and in the bass you will hear mostly the room, and then the speakers, and then the recording.

All of which is fine! We can enjoy these differences in reproduction once we reject the idea that one of them is “right”

Target curve is merely a preference, it doesn’t fundamentally change the recording , what you are suggesting implies that adding any amount of distortion from poorly engineered equipment is fine well it’s not.
Keith

 

[fpitas]

To whom?

To them, quite often. They complain it sounds better without EQ. Well, duh.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

If I am unhappy with the dish, it goes back to the kitchen. Or I might "modify" it by salting it.

Sure, but you probably wouldn't build a machine that would add salt to every dish that got placed on your table whether it needed it or not.

There's nothing particularly "holy" about the signal. It's simply the fundamental information we have to work with. I personally (and this is a choice I make about how I want my system to function) don't want to alter that information in essentially random/unquantified ways.

 

[fpitas]

To whom?

I'm not talking about pushing down some bass peaks, btw. I'm talking about re-shaping the whole curve.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

To them, quite often. They complain it sounds better without EQ. Well, duh.

Oh.

It's just that I'm one of those heretics that does full range correction and love every second of it. It isn't a "push here for great sound" deal though.