These thoughts come in the wake of Romy’s recent encounter with a certifiable fringe dweller who, IMO, is not just illustrative in the generic hi-fi nutbag sense, but also in the there’s-more-to-this-nutbag-than-his-worst-would-suggest sense.  By this I mean that if one looks at the products this guy offers in the context that he himself has established, then likely there is nothing there but expensive OCD nonsense.  But if you bring your own knowledge and objectives along while exploring/shopping, then some of the stuff this guy offers might turn out to be useful.  Like it or lump it, it is often the nutbags who “push the envelope”.  Sure, it can be tough dealing with zealots; but who else can we trust?

I hope it is understood here that although I am making a case of “Romy’s” guy (who shall remain nameless herein), I am really talking in general terms about a specific type of audio component developer/supplier.  You know, the sort where you browse the website (or store) with trepidation or even foreboding because of the stench that you notice right away and then it eventually pervades the place?  I mean, how can you take seriously the claims of a guy who (it turns out) listens to (and so, presumably, evaluates) all his “SOTA” components with nothing but electronic music delivered via Celestion 600s in a 10 X 10 listening room?  For instance, can “The Best IC in the World” be determined from this set-up?  I am also trying to get a handle on the sort of acumen required to make one’s way through the insane asylum/minefield/marketplace in an attempt to make any headway in this hobby.

The fact is that to wind up with anything useful from exploring/shopping you must either be supremely lucky or you must bring with you at least some sense of what you want and how to get it, ie you must have some “background” against which you can compare and contrast the statements and claims made by others, in order to evaluate their statements, claims and components in your own context.  There is an approach, I think, that makes it possible to find and adapt useful components from almost anywhere, from Radio Shack™ to Sound by Singer™.

With respect to the “marketplace”, who knows why so many audio tweaks are nut jobs?  Clearly there is a form of audio psychosis that is contagious.  As in the case of religion or “science”, ideas about audio seem to get into the brain like worms that just eat away all reason and obscure the power to truly discriminate.  But is it reasonable in the first place to judge components from the claims their purveyors make?  Maybe partly, but experience and reason also suggest that the only meaningful proof of a component is within one’s own context.

I have wrestled for some time with the ideas of “better” versus “different” versus “accurate” versus “musical” and I have come to the conclusion that many of the conclusions I arrive at are subject to change.  Also, I have pretty much abandoned label-specific loyalty, if only because others’ conclusions also appear to be subject to change, sometimes without checking with me first.

I am trying to think of any component I use that remains stock.  My Ortofon MC3000II cartridge and matching T3000 transformer and my ML2s are about it.  I think I have futzed with everything else in one way or another.  This does not take into consideration the fact that most component manufacturers supposedly design a “line” of components that are meant to be “synergistic”, ie, the lot of them working together is supposed to do “better” than the sum of the parts.  Wouldn’t it be nice if this were true?  I think it would be nice if anyone could just design something good and then leave it alone for a while without effing it up in the name of a “II” or “S” designation.  A particularly narsty example of this syndrome is all too common, when the “improvements” are really just cost-cutting measures or some other form of pandering to current “market” expectations.

But I have to give credit where credit is due: to the few nutjobs out there who really don’t give a tinker’s damn about anyone else’s opinions, even in cases where others’ opinions happen to be right.  These guys just keep bopping along to the sound of their own drum kits, regardless of common knowledge, public opinion or poverty.  Like suffering zealots everywhere, they may even derive a certain grim pleasure from the notion that they are “right” (and others are wrong).  So, who really cares about parts, anyway?  These guys would kill or be killed over whether or not a part should be cryogenically treated, or whether it sounds best oriented length or width-wise along the sun’s vernal axis.

Which brings me to the idea of “difference”.

Years ago I did not scoff at the notion of power cords making a difference, even though I had yet to hear any such difference myself.  Then, I heard a difference.  As far as I am concerned, this is the stuff of madness, because, as it turns out, I have for years been able to “hear” pretty much any and every change I make to my system, down to a single resistor or jack.

Whack?  Youbetcha!  But you can’t tell that to the poor souls who are “out there” dedicating their lives to exploring and categorizing the differences that they either do hear or that they think they hear.

Many years ago, as an undergraduate, I was required to serve as a “lab rat” in a series of experiments that ostensibly dealt with hearing.  Subjects were asked to listen to words recorded onto a reel of tape and indicate to the researcher any change that was detected.  In one series in which I participated, a word was repeated a few times, and then I continued to listen and note it as the word subtly “morphed”, like this: Ship; ship; ship (etc); schick, shit, sip, etc., etc., with the “differences” vague but at the same time clearly audible to a careful listener.  Only, guess what?  It turns out that the “reel of tape” the subject watches un-spool is really just an elongated “loop” of one, unchanging (and so, unchanged) word; meaning that any “differences” “detected” in this experiment (and there were plenty of subjects, and they all “heard and described the changes”) are in the mind of the subject rather than on the tape.  Take a few minutes with this one.

So, here we are, adrift on the great big sea of audio tomfoolery, without a metaphorical paddle.  If we can on the one hand hear any and every change in our systems, then this implies that everything is worth considering.  If we are prone on the other hand to confuse what we do and don’t actually hear, then although everything may be worth considering, does it make any difference we can certainly identify as an “improvement”?

All these rhetorical questions I offer up as my part in building the New Audio Tower of Babble, where any and all changes will be tried, codified and [com]piled until we ascend finally to the Sound Absolute.

Meantime, I will continue to just take the periodic flyer on stuff that “sounds like it could be good” in the sense that the “facts” as I presently understand them suggest a candidate.

As for running the gauntlet of whack-os who guard the temples that enshrine the SOTA components, I guess I’ll keep taking them on a case-by-case basis.  No, I will never pay just to browse a fancy Manhattan salon.  But I might well make nice to some drooler with air caps in Boise.

Paul S wrote:

So, here we are, adrift on the great big sea of audio tomfoolery, without a metaphorical paddle. If we can on the one hand hear any and every change in our systems, then this implies that everything is worth considering. If we are prone on the other hand to confuse what we do and don’t actually hear, then although everything may be worth considering, does it make any difference we can certainly identify as an “improvement”? All these rhetorical questions I offer up as my part in building the New Audio Tower of Babble, where any and all changes will be tried, codified and [com]piled until we ascend finally to the Sound Absolute.

I don’t know what other people respond to as “music”, but I certainly regard sound itself as very important, indeed, and my own sense is that sound itself is usually most of what I am futzing with when I futz with my system.  Basically, I trust myself to be able to use sound as a tool to home in on music with my hi-fi.  Regardless of my serious jokes about drifting and piling inanity to Babble-on, I still try to tune my system to sound like I want it to.  While I can’t help but distinguish between live music and hi-fi, I also aim to capture/re-create with my hi-fi as much as I can of what moves me about live performances, including fair sonic verisimilitude.  No, I can’t get Beethoven’s 9th just right, but then I don’t presently aim to.  Call me a quitter, but I just mostly gave up quite a few years ago.  It’s just too freaking BIG.  Still, with respect to your point, Romy, I do at times get something very much akin to musical awareness even from Beethoven’s 9th, sonic disparities notwithstanding.  And in answer to the post just prior to this one, I do not get an analogous art fix from looking at, say, prints of Pollocks’ paintings, compared to looking at the originals.  I am thinking right now about “texture” and a sort of “perspective” implied by “texture”, not to mention “gesture”, and I think this applies broadly to music, as well.  By this I mean to say that I “believe” I have actually gotten some of these things “right” in the rote sense with my sound system.

I am always amused when people mention musicians in the context of audio, especially when “musicians” are introduced as though a musician somehow naturally has better hi-fi discernment or a better handle on sound reproduction.  Although I’m sure that others’ experiences will vary, I can count on one hand the musicians I’ve known who gave a fig about hi-fi, and of those only one ever bothered to try to assemble a “special” system.  He went out shopping, asked questions, listened and spent some real money on it.  Eventually he (apparently) put together the system he was looking/listening for, and IMO it sucked (although it would get pretty loud).

So who knows what a musician is thinking about with respect to live versus Memorex?  Those I talk to generally seem pretty far removed from sound per se, except as it relates to something very specific, like a particular instrument or a certain tonic value, etc.  Otherwise, they seem mostly interested in performance, per se -  how so-and-so performs a particular piece, or exactly what so-and-so did/does in fairly rote terms.  While I’ve gotten some remarkable insights into music from listening to musicians talk about music, I have also pretty much had them let the air out of what I thought were some great performances.  I would not be surprised to find out that Richter did not bother to further distinguish what to him warranted no further distinction.

Paul S wrote:

I don’t know what other people respond to as “music”, but I certainly regard sound itself as very important... I do not get an analogous art fix from looking at, say, prints of Pollocks’ paintings, compared to looking at the originals... I am always amused when people mention musicians in the context of audio... Eventually he [a musician] put together the system he was looking/listening for, and IMO it sucked.

Reading Paul’s reply I came across to asking myself of what we call painting. Let get for instance any famous works, let I be the early Dali’s portrait of his sister “Figure at Window”. What we call as the “Figure at Window”?

When we mention the “Figure at Window” do we mean the actual original canvas with panting or we rather refer to the message/impression that the work ignited within its viewers? What we call “event”? The happening that took place in distant past or out perception of the event fact? I certainly am not wiling to dive into the well-fought debates of German 19 century subjective idealist; we all were there in our tens. However, there was a lot of truth, if not truth then “peacefulness” in those views…

To me, the “Figure at Window” as a fact is rather a persistent sentiment then the painting that hangs somewhere in a museum or in privet collection. I never seen it life and I have no real intention to do it. How different it would be from music. What is important to know what the Beethoven IX is all about or to have an opportunity to …go into a museum and to see the Beethoven IX is handing on the wall?

Once again, it would not be the unified answer and it all depends HOW YOU USE IT.

You might built better audio or learn to develop more sensitive perception and you end up with the same results. This why I, staring from a certain level, refuse to combine audio and music and  feel that audio resole own purely “abstract audio” tasks (and I do not see anything negative in it) and musicality exist “as is”, completely out of the scope and our or regards of the audio methods…

Well, I have mixed and confused that all together, didn’t I? Good for me.

Max Shatsky wrote:

>You might built better audio or learn to develop more sensitive perception and you end up with the same results. This why I, staring from a certain level, refuse to combine audio and music and  feel that audio resole own purely “abstract audio” tasks (and I do not see anything negative in it) and musicality exist “as is”, completely out of the scope and our or regards of the audio methods… Romy, I still don't get why you call it 'abstract audio' and why you put audio out of music context. Yes, audio and music are not the same things, but the type of audio discussed at this forum serves as a tool of conveying musical messages (at least some of them). A composer can use a violin to create a sense of bird singing. If a reproduction system is incapable to deliver that AUDIO qualities, then the message is lost. That's why you can't get the same results from "built better audio" and "learn to develop more sensitive perception". Different intentions/messages/visions may require different tools/perceptions to convey themselfs. >"own purely “abstract audio” tasks "  what are these? You mean the taskes that have no connection to music? then why do we need to bother about it (in this forum)?

Still, there is something after that and it is not only my own observations but also a common pattern. A person eventually become so familiar with the mechanisms of own listening awareness and so demanding to his/her listening experiences that for that person it became more beneficial to acknowledge reflections of own extrapolation instead of the sound of actual reproduced reality. When the person in his/her development riches this state the “quality” of sound reproduction become less and less relevant, up to the point of being irrelevant at all. (Actually the definition of “quality” becomes to have different meaning...)  At this state the person might still continue working on audio improvements but what the person does form now and on is pure “abstract audio” as it serves purely self-serving audio objectives…. because the person’s  musical objectives have no audio aim already.   Interesting that I do not recognize the term “abstract audio” as an offensive expression, in fact, I personally consider that the “abstract audio” it is the only purist and the most objective way to deal with sound reproduction. A person at this state resolves pure audio tasks, and yes, if it is necessary then the person plugs into the dame all necessary cultural and musical “support”. However, the person at the very same time clearly recognizes that success or failure of this “abstract audio task” is absolutely detached from own listening awareness and own cultural musical evolution.

The following reflects the current state of my understanding, and in some cases, my opinion... I welcome and very much value other points of view.

Max, regarding B&W and Color : Actually we do agree here ; I did not write (nor mean to suggest) that one could replace the other. They most certainly cannot substitute each other.

Paul, please bear with me ; this does get back to audio.

When you view a B&W film, your eyes register contrast. This contrast renders the scene legible without color. However, a color film without contrast would be illegible.

A person with totally defective cones (color receptors) is totally colorblind. A person with totally defective rods (contrast receptors) is just plain blind, and no amount of perfect cones will change that.

Without contrast, color is of no interest.

It is contrast not color which defines space.

   

In the first image, all the color information was removed, but all the contrast was preserved.

In the second image, all the contrast information was removed, but all the color was preserved (meaning that all color was brought to the same level of contrast... You can see how little color info this image really has)

Whether you view a film, or listen to music, your mind is actually reading space (I am not referring to the recording space) ; The writer or composer sets up immagery through which your mind navigates. It does not matter whether you see the input or hear it or both, you mind is on the move.

Contrast, is fundamental to the perception of this space or any other space.

Color is fundamental to the perception of... color. It is an additional but subordinate level of information.

Yes space can have color, and yes color can help or hinder the definition of space.

The term relative contrast (as opposed to absolute contrast) refers to the contrast within a scale defined by a given situation. Your mind auto-calibrates to these scales.

My point in the example of the black and white film is that even though life happens in "Living Color", the mind calibrates to this limited set of information, and in the case of a good film, the mind recognizing it has what it needs, takes that information, and runs with it.

How does that translate to audio ?

A musical performance may contain many times more information than the creator intended to convey.

Again, this is my opinion :

It is not necessary or even desirable that a system reproduce all the information of the live event.

Yes some of this information is of interest, but this is not the meat of what allows perception.

The principal element of what allows perception of sound can only be put forth in terms of relative contrast.

Relative contrast of duration, pitch, dynamics, and timbre.

It is difficult enough to assemble a system that completely renders all information the performer intended to convey in just these terms.

Just as in a painting, until relative contrast is mastered, the addition of color serves only to further pollute the message.

What I'm saying may sound obvious, but consider how many expensive systems you've heard that are capable of rendering micro-detail, without completely nailing the basics.

The typical list is as follows :

The compromised Mid Range driver being solicited for Mid Bass duty as well

The total absence of real Mid Bass / Mid Bass with tone

The overly hot, overly present High Frequency driver

The Lower Bass which has no tone and is way too strong around 40Hz because the ports have to kick in somewhere...

With problems of this magnitude, the rendering of a finer level of detail is as ridiculous as dressing a pig in a Chanel gown.

************

Regarding the possibility to replicate a live performance via HiFi :

The musician uses his musical instrument to produce sound. The musician does not try to get the sound of a cello from his instrument unless it is a cello (or a synthesyzer). The HiFi guy on the other hand uses the one membrane of his Mid Range driver to produce the sounds of half the instruments in an orchestra, sometimes all playing at once !

It is said that "a good driver can handle the simultaneous reproduction of more than one sound"... Hold that thought, I'll get back to it.

When you think what a Mid Range driver is being asked to do in the case of an orchestral performance, even the crappiest of drivers is at first glance performing what seems to be a miracle ; something way beyond what the technology involved would suggest. How can a piston moving in two dimensions start, stop, and change direction fast enough to produce the sound of all those instruments playing at once?

The answer is simple, and it is not a miracle ; This is possible only because the human ear is also a one membrane system, in a way, a mirror of that one driver.

When we listen to live performances, the membrane of our ear is being pressured by the natural sum of several sounds. From this, our brain re-assembles a sound image.

The fact that to our ear, a driver can mimic the symultanious reproduciton of more than one sound, does not mean that it is producing several sounds. It is producing the sum of several sounds, first summed by the microphone(s) and all the recording gear, and then sent as a summed package via all our play back gear to act on the drivers membrane, finally pressurizing the membrane of our ears. The difference : In the case of a live performance, our ear is allowed to sum the input, and our brain processes this raw information directly ; In the case of HiFi, the summing has already been done, and our brane is asked to extrapolate a line of pre-summed information.

To hope to reconstruct the original picture from information that has been completely altered (in different ways with each recording) seems ridiculous.

For this reason, if one day somebody does succeed in reproducing the sound of a live performance via HiFi, I would not be surprised to see they started by creating a recording consisting of several channels, each one carrying the information from only one instrument. This multi-channel recording would then be played back via a corresponding number of dedicated drivers set up where the instruments were found (relative to each other) at the time of the original event, leaving it to our ears and minds to sum and decode the total.

jd*

"Relative contrast of duration, pitch, dynamics, and timbre."
I think those are characteristics -- not the "meat". Those are tools: you can also add tempo, and tonality

"...the human ear is (...) a one membrane system, in a way, a mirror of (...) one driver." Are you sure? Aren't there tiny hairs, each of which, given SP, oscillates at a different frequency, thereby giving the brain the particulars of tonality, amplitude, etc?


"In the case of a live performance, our ear is allowed to sum the input, and our brain processes this raw information directly ; In the case of HiFi, the summing has already been done, and our brane is asked to extrapolate a line of pre-summed information.

To hope to reconstruct the original picture from information that has been completely altered (in different ways with each recording) seems ridiculous."

I like this view and would like to think about it.
Maybe I'll even take my scope for a holiday ride to listen to a ruthlessly revealing system...

The substitution of tonal semantics to visual semantics is well researched phenomena.  I think Russian composers and musicologist in end of the 19 century of the 20 century went further then anyone else into the subject.

From an emotional perception of tone in renaissance (for instance)

C-dur - cheerful and warlike
D-dur - joyful and VERY warlike
E-dur - quarrelsome and irritable
Es-dur - cruel and stern
F-dur - violent and hasty
G-dur - tender and joyful
A-dur - joyful and pastoral
B-dur - majestic and joyful
H-dur - stern and sorrowful

through the German evolved sensual recognition of tonality in 19 century, Russians went for a direct association between colors and tones. Rimsky-Korsakov of course was the key in there and the Scriabin symphonies for light installation and orchestra were in the very summit. I think there is something race-biological in Salve because it is know that they generally very inclined to color hearing. Ironically the morons with medical diplomas recognize color hearing as chromesthesia and suggest treating it with prescription medications.  :-)

Still, I feel, although it perfectly comfortable with explanation of musicality by visual association but there is catch in it. This association comes to existence ONLY when we try to explain music (even for ourselves)… but any explanation is in fact a conversion of poor musicality into…. literature.

So, I do not think that there is anything wrong with visualization of music … but only if a person can not communicate on native musical semantic, phonetic and vocabulary. If the person’ awareness can operate in the realms of pure mural abstraction then any visualization of music become unnecessary. People who study foreign languages in the beginning translate what they hear into their native language. Then, the better they command the foreign languages the faster they inner-translate the messages and eventually they switch into  direct use of foreign languages, without any intimidate translation…

Dominic wrote:

he who can describe it does not know….. There is a subconscious understanding of these principles at work while we listen….