audio2design, you continue to accuse me of making things up. I don’t make things up. My patience with your arrogance runs thin. Yours is precisely the attitude that I come across on the part of many engineers who rely on theory because they don’t have particularly good ears (at best) and even worse, considering their profession, do not have good sensibilities when it comes to music and performance.
mahgister puts it well:
**** I argued against the dogmatic affirmation by the power of numbers of absolute digital superiority.... Precisely because the human ears experience decide first.....****
Exactly.
Now, you should spend a little less energy on trying to be right (you are not) and a little more on reading what others have written more carefully.
**** I am also saying your claim that recording engineers think analog/vinyl is more "real" on average is made up ****
Nowhere did I write anything of the sort. Quite the opposite:
**** I could also point out and expound on the fact that recording engineers and musicians are often at odds as to what sounds closer to real (one reason so many recordings sound subpar) **** |
Man, you’re a piece of work. First you accuse me of lying and now I am oblivious.
First, could you please rewrite your last paragraph, I have no idea what it is you are trying to say; except for the last sentence and I don’t think this is for lack of understanding on my part.
Look it’s quite simple for me. I have been making a living playing music at a high level for 45 years and part of being successful at this is learning to trust one’s ears. I know what my ears tell me. I trust my ears and they tell me that ON BALANCE, well implemented analog gets closer to the sound of real than does digital. Not always by a lot, but enough for it to matter to me based on my sonic and musical priorities. You seem to want to fall back on the technical and/or theoretical aspects of it all. The sound of music and its playback is much more fluid and elusive than that for a variety of reasons; not the least of which is the human element. You obviously have different sonic priorities than I do. I’m cool with that. Can you say the same? Or, do you feel better thinking that I am clueless and that I am lying about all this?
From my first post here:
The most interesting question for me is why it is that some are so hellbent on trying to convince me that I don’t hear what I do hear.
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Just what, exactly, is so controversial about the use of the term “micro dynamic nuance”? I doubt very much that I am the first person to ever use that term. However, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I am the first to use this “made up” term. Let’s see:
“Micro dynamic nuance”. I think we can agree that the term “micro dynamics” is a term commonly used in audiophile parlance. The notion, if not the actual term, is commonly used by musicians. So, within the realm of the micro dynamics in a performance, or how a piece of gear or format is able to convey micro dynamics there can be “nuance”. No? The term describes the very fine gradations of micro dynamics present or not. The perfectly gradated crescendo made by a string section playing Mahler, or the extremely fine gradations of volume in a beautifully executed phrase by a solo flute for example. The difference between pppp and ppp; or ff and fff. So, again, just what is so controversial, or offensive, about the use of term “micro dynamic nuance”? Oh, wait, I get it, “recording engineers don’t use the term”. Well, I could simply say, “I rest my case”, but I will expound.
Just what on earth does the fact that recording engineers don’t use the term prove or have to do with anything? I have worked with some recording engineers who are absolutely clueless when it comes to some of the aspects of sound that astute audiophiles, never mind musicians, concern themselves with. This should come as no surprise to anyone when one considers the sonic quality of many recordings. Obviously, there are and have been many great engineers. However, as in any endeavor there are also many marginally capable ones and some who are absolutely terrible. Just as in the world of the audiophile there are engineers who are simply gear heads and don’t have a grasp of.....here it comes.....the “nuances” of a musical performance. They may have “intimate knowledge of the recording process”, but they do so only in the technical sense. I can’t begin to describe how many times I have told a recording engineer: “please, try putting the mic here instead you’ll get a better sound from me” and been proven correct. Of course, often one only gets a dirty look or even told to mind one’s own business. It IS my business. Just two weeks before the COVID lock down, I was at a recording session with a twenty five piece orchestra at one of the sadly few remaining studios in NYC that can accommodate an ensemble of that size. I could clearly hear that my mic was breaking up during loud passages. I kept trying to point this out to the engineer and got the “mind your own business” attitude. I gave up. Not my dime. Guess what phone call I got the next day asking me to go back in for some retakes? To those who often question why musicians don’t have better playback equipment at home, you would be shocked at what some recording engineers consider to be SOTA playback equipment. Please note that I said “some”. As I said there are many very fine engineers.
Now, and this is why I don’t like to relate these discussions to my professional experiences. The fact is that the level of nuance (there’s that pesky term again) that most musicians concern themselves with in the sound of musical instruments and ancillary gear when choosing their personal instruments is much more subtle and varied than most of what gets discussed among audiophiles and by some of the engineers that I have had experience with. This, when discussing the various sound characteristics of sound equipment. Then there is the issue of nuance (sorry) in performance: phrasing, pitch, timbre, ensemble (playing with others) to name a few; all which, for a good musician, have to be even more nuanced (☺️) for there to be a credible performance.
It is true that a player (or singer) does not always have a clear sense of he actually sounds like in the room due to the proximity of the instrument to that musician’s ears. Again, so what? This assertion mistakenly assumes that this type of comparison is made only when considering one’s own sound. This is nonsense. In the realm of acoustic music such as chamber and orchestral “Classical” music and acoustic Jazz, musicians are often obsessive about having trusted colleagues describe what they hear in each others’ sound while performing and while recording.
Once again it is shown that dependence on “evidence” is pure folly. Sound familiar? There is no sonic difference between cables, right? Ignore what your ears tell you and show me the “evidence” that there is. Right.
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“Lying”
Nice! Way to go. I have no idea what exactly your experience has been, or what genre(s) you have worked with. I could also point out and expound on the fact that recording engineers and musicians are often at odds as to what sounds closer to real (one reason so many recordings sound subpar), but that would surely not lead to anything positive here. Obviously, we have had very different experiences. It is also obvious that it is not possible to have a discussion with you. Perhaps our paths will cross some day? I tend to doubt it.
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wuwulf, Re “ambience”:
I hope it is ok to take the liberty of quoting another poster:
Schubert 12-23-2020 11:28am
All that matters is what YOUR brain thinks .
Mine thinks vinyl is in a airy room.
It thinks CD is playing in a room with no air in it .
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**** .....you are making up a property and then assigning it to a particular technology that you like. That is your choice.
Am I pretty certain you have never spent time in a recording studio with access to both tape and moderately good digital to know that the qualities you assign to "analog" simply do not exist? Yes. ****
With all due respect, as concerns the above comments, you don’t know what you are talking about.
I generally don’t like to talk about my professional experiences on an Internet forum; in part because I understand that we all have different experiences and it is pointless, not to mention disrespectful, to try and convince someone that his experience is ill founded. I prefer to simply put my observations, based on my experiences, out there and anyone can make of them what they will. Having said all that, make of this what you will and for whatever it may be worth:
First, as I wrote previously, both formats can sound excellent. The differences being discussed are certainly subtle; but they are very real nonetheless. So, for me, this is not about putting down one format or the other; both excel in particular ways. It should also be pointed out that, as any good audiophile knows 😊, one man’s “subtle” is another man’s deal breaker.
I have been a professional musician my entire working life (45 yrs). I have performed in both acoustic (probably mostly) and sound-reinforced settings hundreds (if not thousands) of times. I have also spent hundreds of hours in recording studios and in control booths where I have, on several occasions, been able to listen to playback from both analog tape and digital formats. My opinion and that of many colleagues (not all) has been that ON BALANCE analog tape (and good vinyl playback) gets closer to the sound of real. So, yes, this may be about “preference”....preference for what sounds closer to real. It should come as no surprise that all this is particularly obvious in acoustic settings where most if not all instruments being played and recorded are acoustic instruments and not amplified or electronically processed in any way.
Anyone who has not had any experience listening to playback of a performance in a control booth would be shocked at just how much degradation of musical nuance the performance suffers by the time it reaches the consumer, no matter the format or record/playback technology used. In my experience the most damage is done in the area of the sense of aliveness or micro dynamics. It is mostly in this area of the total sonic experience that we can hear most of a performer’s expressive qualities; subtle phrasing details and overall musical intent.
Some of us are very sensitive to and so very focused on issues of timbre as the deciding factor of what is “accurate” or not. There is no doubt that timbre is related to and impacts our perception of dynamic nuance. However, in my experience it does so only to a degree. Playback equipment can sound fairly truthful timbre wise, but sound dynamically dead. Conversely, some can err on the side of timbral euphony and still sound dynamically alive.
Neither format nor playback gear is perfect and we are all sensitive to particular areas of the complete sonic picture of a musical performance more so than others. Given the excellence of both formats and gear available today it seems silly to argue about any of this. However, for me, and whatever technical reasons there may be for this, ON BALANCE, analog simply has more of that “thing” that can sometimes almost fool me into thinking that I am listening to the real thing. Digital simply doesn’t do it nearly as often.
Happy listening.
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audio2design, I think I made it pretty obvious. First, it is not a question of which has more or less, but of which renders micro dynamic nuance (not “micro nuance”) in a more natural way. This is what many refer to as simply micro dynamics. Micro dynamics is what gives music the sense of aliveness and what, more so than timbre, conveys the musical expression of the performer.
Obviously, both technologies can sound very good and the differences between the best of both are very subtle. However, the differences are still there. If compare we must, for me, good analog still gets closer to the sound of real. That is what my ears tell me. Yours may not. I’m cool with that. Why does this bother some? |
True. An instrument may have certain timbre characteristics that are inherent and manifest themselves, to one degree or another, no matter the musician playing it. However, the sound (timbre) we hear is primarily the personal sound that the player coaxes out of the instrument. IOW, two different players playing the same instrument will produce very different timbres. We are not talking about the timbre of the instrument, but of the timbre of the musician....his unique timbre signature.
More importantly, and this is probably the main problem with these debates, timbre is only one of the ways in how the two technologies differ fundamentally. Issues of dynamic rendering of the music...what some refer to as level of “emotional involvement” are even more important. We tend to focus primarily on issues of and differences in timbre and overlook issues that manifest themselves in how the two technologies and the playback equipment reproduce micro dynamic nuance. There is where most of the music can be found. Not in the sound (timbre) of the performance, but the feeling in the performance. |
**** People are no longer afraid in the audiophile community to say they prefer digital, or even to say they prefer vinyl,.......****
True.
****....... but realize it is a personal preference, ......****
Also true.
****....... nothing to do with accuracy of recreation. ****
Absolutely not true.
It has everything to do with accuracy of recreation.....,,for me. However, I am not the least bit interested in trying to convince you or anyone that I am right and that you are wrong. Just don’t waste your energy trying to convince me that I am wrong. Please!
To me, good analog simply sounds closer to the sound of live unamplified unprocessed acoustic musical instruments and voice than even the best digital. It is a fundamental difference that is there no matter how good the equipment is. Of course, with the best equipment of both ilks the difference is subtle, but it is still there. I hear it and it is obvious to me. I base this, not on unfounded “preference”, but on countless hours of being around the sound of live acoustic instruments. So, The most interesting question for me is why it is that some are so hellbent on trying to convince me that I don’t hear what I do hear.
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