Preference vs. "correct" and Accuracy

[R.Mackey]

That is not true about measurements, I see measurements used subjectively all the time.

Me too, as anyone who's ever used a statistical argument knows. Still, the measurements themselves are not subjective. Just like a hammer isn't. Measurements are a tool, and I use them to help me understand my subjective tastes in audio, but there's a line between the two.

So sayeth this practicing scientist, anyway.

 

[Paulhoff]

Me too, as anyone who's ever used a statistical argument knows. Still, the measurements themselves are not subjective. Just like a hammer isn't. Measurements are a tool, and I use them to help me understand my subjective tastes in audio, but there's a line between the two.

So sayeth this practicing scientist, anyway.

I quess you haven't seen that most people are not scientist.

Paul



And miss using measurements is another tool method.

 

[jj]

Well, I'm just back from 8 days at NAB, where I got to look at a lot of broadcast equipment, listen to (and participate in) endless debates on "what is loudness" and how to measure it, and so on.

Sorry to have sort of dropped this thread on its head, but the Hilton's internet is s*l*o*w*.

Mumble.

 

[Paulhoff]

Well, I'm just back from 8 days at NAB, where I got to look at a lot of broadcast equipment, listen to (and participate in) endless debates on "what is loudness" and how to measure it, and so on.

Sorry to have sort of dropped this thread on its head, but the Hilton's internet is s*l*o*w*.

Mumble.

Well JJ I have my mumble too, and it is, and you can tell, and it could be in private, what speakers and amps are good. Are my PSB T45s worth a doo-doo.

Paul

 

[ktesibios]

Once upon a time, a client asked me if the monitoring in a particular control room was "accurate". What I told him was:

"Gerald, when you have a jack in the back of your neck that lets me plug the mix straight into your brain, then I'll claim that the monitoring is truly accurate. In the case of the music you're working on, the concept of "accuracy" really doesn't apply, because the song never existed as an acoustical event in the first place. It's several dozen separate tracks, most of which came out of boxes in the form of electrical signals and which are only now even being introduced to each other.

What matters is whether you can use the control room monitors to make reliable predictions about what the experience of listening to your record will be like for the guy who buys the album and plays it at home. If so, and your record sales suggest that it has been so, then the monitors fill your needs. OTOH, if you take mixes home and find yourself thinking "what the @#$% were we thinking when we did that?", then we've got a problem."

For me, as a tech, measurements serve mostly as a way of answering the question "should I @#$% with it?". For example, if I've got a channel module from one of our SSL 9000Ks on the test fixture, I expect that the EIN of the mic pre should be -129.5 dBu or lower and the THD+N of the dynamics section VCA (or the small fader VCA) should be <0.01%. If these conditions aren't met, then it's time for me to @#$% with it until they are.

Two sayings I repeat a lot at work:

"There ain't no accounting for taste"
"There's an awful lot of "psycho" in "psychoacoustics"

 

[Paulhoff]

Two sayings I repeat a lot at work:

"There ain't no accounting for taste"
"There's an awful lot of "psycho" in "psychoacoustics"

Says it all for me.

Paul

 

[bruto]

I think in considering this you have to take into account the tendency of some psychoacoustic effects to lose their appeal over time. Many things you do to change the sound, including rather odd distortions, can be appealing in the short term, and then become annoying as it continues. You can even experiment with this on yourself, in a somewhat non-scientific manner, if you have any of various sound enhancing devices. For a long time I had a cheap equalizer that included a "spatial expander" feature, which I used mostly for processing old 78's for retaping, and it was rather interesting to see how there was an immediate "wow" factor when you pushed the button. After about 5 minutes, I'd push the button again, and feel a great relief when the enhancement was cut off again.

Long ago, a friend who knew an audio reviewer gave me an amusing device from the tube era, whose name I now forget. It was a fancy, and rather expensive (and beautifully made) device that was claimed to make everything sound better. There was a bunch of mumbo jumbo in the instructions, and little controls for the effect. Basically, what it did was to introduce a variety of wild but very narrow band distortions into the system. The placement of these was based on some wacko theory which I don't remember either, but it had some name, like the Krumholz-Glump effect or something. If you looked at a plain sine wave "enhanced" by this thing, it was crazy. Did it sound better? Yes, sort of, briefly, before some kind of mental fatigue would set in. Then you'd turn it off, and realize how good the sound was without it.

 

[Paulhoff]

Let’s see if I can make this idea clear.

My friend of wire woo-woo seems to always been playing with his system, mainly with the wire. He also believes in wire break-in, and breaking-in for other pieces of equipment, as in amps, CD players, speakers etc. This is all because he hears it, but not once has ever done a double blind test, because he doesn’t believe in them since they tell him he is wrong and he knows he hears a difference.

Now here is my untested idea of what may be happen after reading bruto and also thinking about my own experiences. You get a new piece of equipment, and it may have a new sound quality that you like, but has time goes on and you become accustomed to it, that new sound seems to go away (that so-called break-in period for my friend). So instead of understanding that it is you that is changing, my friend thinks the equipment needs a new tweak, because the equipment and not him, has changed. So out comes the new wire for new fix and since he has changed something, he thinks that there must be a change in the sound. So when his brain so thru the break-in period again, he must tweak it again.

Paul

 

[richardm]

What matters is whether you can use the control room monitors to make reliable predictions about what the experience of listening to your record will be like for the guy who buys the album and plays it at home.

To this end, Phil Spector apparently used a cheap transistor radio speaker in his control room when working on his walls-of-sound.