FUD, intellectual honesty, digital facts, and the TAS articles...

[Wombat]

Haven't you ever heard of bit-rot? It's a huge problem in the software industry, where we have whole source-control repositories go bad.

bit-rot <- expression of the week

Just imagine how this term opens up new possibilities for tuning. If you use to slow ethernet speeds the bit-rot kicks in. Waiting to long in the FIFO of cause leads to bit-rot! Can´t await some new revolutionary theories.

[darrell]

I believe here we have a severe misunderstanding of engineers.
Engineers are NOT dumb morons who can't hear the words.

To the contrary, engineers are VERY well capable to see and understand these results, learn from them and use them to build sophisticated and expensive - actually VERY expensive - equipment honoring all of the findings and even to market and sell this equipment once they've built it.

And no, they will NOT be unhappy about all of this let alone being driven crazy by it.

I think that "the engineers" will just conclude that TAS reviewers are crazy.

[totoro]

I think that "the engineers" will just conclude that TAS reviewers are crazy.

Or maybe dishonest.

[totoro]

bit-rot <- expression of the week

Just imagine how this term opens up new possibilities for tuning. If you use to slow ethernet speeds the bit-rot kicks in. Waiting to long in the FIFO of cause leads to bit-rot! Can´t await some new revolutionary theories.

How things work in the TAS alternate universe:

Programmer 1 to programmer 2: Wtf, I just checked out this project, and it doesn't build anymore. It built yesterday, and you were the last one to check anything in.

Programmer 2: It built when I checked it in. Must be bit-rot, I'll have to check all the cables in the data-center.

Programmer 1: Yeah, that's pretty plausible. We should think about changing from github to bitbucket-- bitbucket uses really good MIT network cabling....

[Mnyb]

Maybe we can get the devs to build version of the Touch firmware with better Ethernet cables in thier data centres and a better power cords of course , they may have had their shakti stone on the rpm build server yesterday it sound so much better

[totoro]

Maybe we can get the devs to build version of the Touch firmware with better Ethernet cables in thier data centres and a better power cords of course , they may have had their shakti stone on the rpm build server yesterday it sound so much better

The real problem with the server is that it is written in perl, which is a terribly impure language, giving us poorly shaped, dirty bits much more prone to bit-rot. They really need to rewrite the server in a pure functional programming language like haskell or ml, so that we can get rot-free data.

I think I might have hit on the next big thing in tweakery: "audiophile programming languages".

[Phil Leigh]

However, in the photography world, there is also nonsense, at least in the mass market - see the marketing of ever-greater megapixels in low-end cameras where the limiting factor is obviously the glass.

As far as audio is concerned, progress can still be made in the loudspeaker area. What about active speakers with built-in room correction, which do not need to be placed out in the room, far from boundaries? I know I've just described a Meridian system, but I mean more towards the mass market.

most photo mags call this out as nonsense... It's the manufacturers who know the mass market is driven by impressive numbers...pixels sell cameras! The pros are clamouring for dynamic range...

The nice thing about optical stuff is that it is quite easy to measure and there is broad agreement on which measurements matter.

[Phil Leigh]

mr phil...


here are two of my earliest recordings, as an apprentice rec/balance engineer in germany.....the haydn..


http://www.theresia-aranowski.de/hoerbeispiele.html


just blumlein. akg 426. dav(drsigned by ex decca engineer mick hinton) mic preamps into zaxxcom deva

Nice!

[Phil Leigh]

First I'm honored that one of my many endless rants helped to inspire this thread. Second perhaps we should get going over in the music section on the best covers of Bob Dylan songs. The new "Chimes of Freedom" collection gets a high vote just on volume alone.



I'm beginning to think that it is the marketing departments of several manufactures behind all this nonsense. There two factors in play here. First there the shrinking CD player market as more and more people move to computer based audio front ends. And then there is the new, and as yet untapped, market of providing an interface between the computer/digital part and the stereo/analog part. Plus there is also the high end "certified" computer market, we just haven't gotten to that part yet.

The new front end is quickly becoming some type of computer and in extreme cases even involves a $300 piece of plastic! I'm referring to the Touch of course. Just remember that little piece of plastic scares the hell out of the high end audio world so they need to tear it down. In addition they are building up some new myths help sell their $$$$$ version of the Touch.

The Touch can handle up to 24 bit/96 kHz so therefore make 32bit/192kHz the new high end high resolution standard. The Touch doesn't output USB so make asynchronous USB the new high end digital connection standard.

So the manufactures push these new standards and the high end magazines follow along like good little sheep. As their reward they get more advertising and special treatment from the manufacturers. The well heeled audiophile gets to all kinds of new toys to play with. Everyone wins!




Excellent analogy.



I don't quite agree since I've heard it said by several musicians over the years that they sometimes wish that they could unlearn their musical training so that they could experience just the music without knowing all of the technical details behind it. In other words, hearing the repeated motif in a symphony as a melody instead of as a series of notes offset by one octave from the main motif. In any event your viewpoint is quite valid as well.

This didn't quite come out as I intended... I didn't mean the musical elements such as melody, orchestration etc... I meant the sound/timbre of the performance.
Anyone can appreciate both aspects... But making judgements Bout the accuracy of the sound reproduction requires more experience than just listening to lots of stuff.. I think you need some real hands on experience creating / capturing sounds and THEN listening to them. I'm only talking about accuracy/fidelity here, not anything else... Nothing to do with enjoyment or pleasure.

[Mnyb]

This didn't quite come out as I intended... I didn't mean the musical elements such as melody, orchestration etc... I meant the sound/timbre of the performance.
Anyone can appreciate both aspects... But making judgements Bout the accuracy of the sound reproduction requires more experience than just listening to lots of stuff.. I think you need some real hands on experience creating / capturing sounds and THEN listening to them. I'm only talking about accuracy/fidelity here, not anything else... Nothing to do with enjoyment or pleasure.

I think you quite close here, I would also add that you are in practice listening to the performance not the equipment modern well designed hifi working inside it's design parameters do very little and the little it does is not wanted ? Who want's slightly more noise and a bit more thd ?

So when I as a person forms an opinion about soundstage and midrange warmth it is really a review of the recording as I experience it in that moment with all bias on

And this can be misleading as I as you say does not hang around mixing studios a lot and don't have intimate knowledge on what's been done.

A clever way around is to realise this, and pay attention to hifi that presents different recordings differently.
As it should be and realise the limits of hifi Diana Krall is not going to be sitting in your lap with a finger behind your ear even if you buy all class A stereophile stuff there is

Electronics is very one dimensional 1 input and 1 output and both can be compared and nulled out what is the sound of nothing ?
To oversimplify this statement if a electronic device has 0.001% distortion it also has 99.999% signal.
If you then pin emotions and musical parameters tomthis machine that only passes or convert a signal what are you thinking.

Speakers on the other hand has one input and infinite outputs , imagine the polar plot as a suffle like 3D wave interacting with you and your room and the thd and other nonlinearities is always there.
There is one feature almost all home speakers suffers, dynamic range is frequency dependent so bass spl is always restricted but midrange and above not, this alters the sound dramatically as you crank up the volume ! People suffers such massive flaws in thier hig end mini monitor while searching for the perfect dac ?