Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rate Thread
Page 7 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Re: Your argument is highly illogical, captain.
#116186 11/20/05 07:28 AM
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 16,441
shareholder in the making
Offline
shareholder in the making
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 16,441
I think I understand what you mean by bloom now. Thank you for explaining. And get this, I agree with you that a simple measurement can't capture it. In that sense, it is psychoacoustic in nature.

However, bloom, imaging, soundtage, and acoustic space are completely secondary to the nature of accurate sound reproduction. For, if bloom exists as a musical quality you can perceive after it has traveled the length of your signal path and the air between your speakers and your ears, then it must first be present in the recorded material and on your playback medium of choice, be it CD, LP, or whatever.

Accurate playback is not a voodoo science that pulls musical essence from the ether and infuses it into the signal path before it is converted to sound waves by your speakers. Accurate playback is a simple matter of cleanly converting digital to analog (a trivial process with today's technology), cleanly amplifying it to the desired listing level (again, trivial), and then cleanly converting it into acoustical energy at the speaker (not as trivial, but readily available with speaker such as our beloved Axioms). (By clean, I mean not adding or subtracting anything from the source material.)

Re: Your argument is highly illogical, captain.
#116187 11/20/05 07:29 AM
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,749
Likes: 37
connoisseur
Offline
connoisseur
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,749
Likes: 37
Adam, why do you keep suggesting that I'm saying that microphones can't "pick up" details, or that the problem is an inadequacy of the microphones. It is not. The microphones pick up everything that you hear in reproduced music or you wouldn't hear it. The issue is not whether the microphones are adequate, but whether all the musical qualities you hear when you listen to MUSIC can be objectively demonstrated by your test equipment.

I'm glad you have answered the question for us as to what 'bloom' is ... something to do with the midrange. Thanks.


Enjoy the Music. Trust your ears. Laugh at Folks Who Claim to Know it All.
Re: Your argument is highly illogical, captain.
#116188 11/20/05 07:35 AM
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,749
Likes: 37
connoisseur
Offline
connoisseur
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,749
Likes: 37
I agree the effects I'm talking about are psycho acoustic. What I'm saying is that not all sound reproduction equipment are equal when it comes to reproducing these effects.

The question is - do components (for example, amplifiers and CD Players) which 'test' the same, sound the same in terms of these qualities (imaging, sense of acoustic space, soundstage, accuracy of the timbre of instruments, attack and decay ... sense of notes 'hanging in the air,' 'bloom') ... they do not sound the same. Some do a better job of reproducing these subtle musical qualities than others.




Enjoy the Music. Trust your ears. Laugh at Folks Who Claim to Know it All.
Re: Your argument is highly illogical, captain.
#116189 11/20/05 07:41 AM
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 16,441
shareholder in the making
Offline
shareholder in the making
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 16,441
If they test the same, then they sound the same. The kicker is to do real-world tests and not simply use test tones, which do not put a piece of equipment through its paces.

...which is exactly why blind tests with actual music, using 100% real human ears and 100% real human brains are so vital to getting results. And you know what? These tests have been done many times. I'd tell you about the results of such tests, but JohnK has already done that many times.

Re: Your argument is highly illogical, captain.
#116190 11/20/05 07:50 AM
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,749
Likes: 37
connoisseur
Offline
connoisseur
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,749
Likes: 37
OK, so you have changed your position to the extent that you now acknowledge that not all audible audio qualities are objectively measurable by your frequency analyzer.

I guess I have enough different systems, and have done enough swapping of components to know that they do not sound the same. Subtle effects are however ... subtle and sometimes it takes a while to determine whether or not you like the swapped component or not.


Enjoy the Music. Trust your ears. Laugh at Folks Who Claim to Know it All.
Re: Your argument is highly illogical, captain.
#116191 11/20/05 07:53 AM
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 18,044
shareholder in the making
Offline
shareholder in the making
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 18,044
Except for the fact that audio memory is not exactly long... maybe 5 seconds or so. Prove it with double blind testing. Use music, if that's your preference. But prove it.


I am the Doctor, and THIS... is my SPOON!
Re: Your argument is highly illogical, captain.
#116192 11/20/05 08:03 AM
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 16,441
shareholder in the making
Offline
shareholder in the making
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 16,441
I didn't change my position. I just didn't give more information that I thought was necessary. A spectrum analyzer can't tell me how the brain interprets stereo sound. It's the intermixing of the different audio channels in the brain that determine spaciousness, soundstage, and imaging. What it can tell me is that the sounds coming from the left and right channels of a component differ and by how much they differ. And, if they differ by the same amount as they do on the recorded CD, then that component has done its job well.

Through all this, I haven't been trying to convince you that your systems all sound the same. I believe you that they sound different, and if I were ever to hear them, myself, I'd tell you the same thing. There are other factors at play though, not the least of which is the different rooms containing the systems.

Last edited by pmbuko; 11/20/05 08:05 AM.
Re: Your argument is highly illogical, captain.
#116193 11/20/05 08:27 AM
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,749
Likes: 37
connoisseur
Offline
connoisseur
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,749
Likes: 37
I wrote:

How do you measure sweet sound, bloom, and all the qualities which characterize the sound made by excellent audio equipment?

KC responded:

Here we go again...

but seriously, dude, it's just sound waves. Compression waves, even, if you will. There's no mystical "music wave" that some things can't reproduce. It's just waves travelling in an air medium. If an audio component can successfully reproduce sound at all frequencies, it can reproduce the timbre of a musical instrument.

PMB concluded:

A microphone connected to a spectrum analyzer. It's not rocket science for goodness sake.

I know that JohnK, PMB, KC, Adam and the reductionist/positivist crowd believe that a $10 CD player will reproduce music as well as any other CDP because, afer all, they're just 1 and 0s, that all amps which have the same specs sound the same ...

Those who bother to listen know better.


Enjoy the Music. Trust your ears. Laugh at Folks Who Claim to Know it All.
Re: Your argument is highly illogical, captain.
#116194 11/20/05 08:32 AM
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 16,441
shareholder in the making
Offline
shareholder in the making
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 16,441
In reply to:

Those who bother to listen know better.


The most overlooked component in any system is the room. I'm just sayin'.

Re: Your argument is highly illogical, captain.
#116195 11/20/05 08:34 AM
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,749
Likes: 37
connoisseur
Offline
connoisseur
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,749
Likes: 37
I agree with you there, PMB.


Enjoy the Music. Trust your ears. Laugh at Folks Who Claim to Know it All.
Page 7 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Moderated by  alan, Amie, Andrew, axiomadmin, Brent, Debbie, Ian, Jc 

Link Copied to Clipboard

Need Help Graphic

Forum Statistics
Forums16
Topics24,940
Posts442,457
Members15,616
Most Online2,082
Jan 22nd, 2020
Top Posters
Ken.C 18,044
pmbuko 16,441
SirQuack 13,840
CV 12,077
MarkSJohnson 11,458
Who's Online Now
0 members (), 386 guests, and 4 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newsletter Signup
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.4