What about large size digital sensors - how do the compare to same size film quality? None of my customers so far are willing to pay enough for me to move above the 24 million pixel Nikon-Canon category. I suspect the Nikon (their best is slightly better than the Canon) would easily compare with Hasselblad 2.25" square and maybe approaching 4X5 depending on which film and lens were used on the 4X5. Phase One has a back that does 60 million pixel captures. Approx. 180 MB files with a 12 stop dynamic range at 8 bit. Basic kit starts about $45,000.00. That would defeat 4X5 (in my opinion) but have not tested it. Technology is available to displace even the best 8X10 and 11X14 inch film cameras, but at super high price. Here's a superb example that none of us could afford but I'm certain is current state of the art (smile). Ultimate digital camera |
Albert - thank you. What about large size digital sensors - how do the compare to same size film quality? Price of sensors and electronic will perhaps go down, but lenses will always cost more than amateurs (like me) are willing to spend. |
Kijanki,
The question began as a query as to how I achieved the large images shown at CES some years ago. I answered the question truthfully.
I'm a professional photographer and I justified my rates by overcoming very difficult technical obstacles. I'm sure you're not the only one who appreciates the speed and ease that digital provides but that was not the question.
As for lenses that operate at F 64, my camera had all bench matched lenses from Sinar, Switzerland.
They also manufacture electronic lighting which was employed for for nearly 100% of the images I produced. A single pop at 1/60 of a second could easily expose 8X10 film at F 90.
As always there are tools for whatever level of quality is required. |
Is 8x10 suitable for any task? Can you use it for late afternoon sports pictures? AFAIK depth of field is very low requiring high F stops. I remember that A. Adams was running "F/64 Club". Such apertures require long exposures making it more suitable for landscape or portrait photography. Cost of the lens with low aberration at such apertures has to be very high not to mention size of the gear and processing. Pictures also cannot be "Photoshopped"
without high resolution scanner for 8x10 negatives.
Price and practicality are important to me. There might be analog TVs that are way better than best HDTV but in what is available to me (Best Buy) is the other way around. |
Albert: I'll never, ever forget those incredible analog photos of yours, featuring various Benz cartridges for Garth of Musical Surroundings. That was way back when I'd first met you. You had these cartridges blown up to somewhere around 20 or 24 inches, with perfect clarity. The resolution was/is just insane. And to have such perfection when the blown ups were room display sized. Does Garth still use these? He should.
How would the best modern day digital photography do by comparison? If you were to do a similar project today, would you go analog or digital? Believe it or not those were from 4X5 film, the 8X10 camera produced even greater resolution. I used 8X10 for Interstate Battery, Bank of America and other clients that wanted perfection. The cost was very high, from the camera and lens to the 8X10 Polaroid proofs, film and process. What you saw at CES were real (Kodak paper) color prints. Digital photography has pretty much taken over, for better or worse. Much like the music business. It's just too easy for clients to make copies, send in email, prep for four color printing and manipulating the image for alternate purposes. If I were doing the job today and wanted equal resolution I would have to rent something. The ultra high resolution digital systems for photography are super expensive (about $80K). So unless you have clients with deep pockets there is no way to justify the expenditure. Like digital in music, easy to get cheap copies (think MP3 and photo from iPhone :^). The big Nikon and Canon 24 million pixel cameras are unbelievably good but not yet up with the ultimate film could deliver. When I do jobs today I never quote film. Film is difficult to impossible to get and all the labs in Dallas that processed pro film have pretty much shut down their lines. |
Bryoncunningham - I do know what you mean. I am rather embarrassed to admit my DAC has tubes. The reason for that is tubes are notorious for going off neutrality. I have done a lot of tube rolling through the years to know they all leave their signature. I have also found there are tubes that err less than others, and those are the ones that attract me. For miniature tubes, I loved the 5751 Sylvania Black Plate. It worked miracles with the Llano amp, and a Jolida 100 I was using way back then.
My DAC has tubes. That is a fact I have to live with for now. I am hoping for a non sampling DAC that has no tubes that I like. The 47 Labs Progression has no tubes, but it has a rather soft delivery.
So, the quest will continue for complete neutrality. |
Albert: I'll never, ever forget those incredible analog photos of yours, featuring various Benz cartridges for Garth of Musical Surroundings. That was way back when I'd first met you. You had these cartridges blown up to somewhere around 20 or 24 inches, with perfect clarity. The resolution was/is just insane. And to have such perfection when the blown ups were room display sized. Does Garth still use these? He should.
How would the best modern day digital photography do by comparison? If you were to do a similar project today, would you go analog or digital?
My apologies if I've taken this thread on a slight tangent. |
Muralman - I agree that the success of room correction depends heavily on the particulars of the system. IME, it also depends heavily on the particulars of implementation. Without naming names, I have heard room correction hardware that ruins the entire signal, just by the addition of the circuit. In other words, even with all room correction values set to unity (i.e. zero), some room correction circuits dramatically degrade sound quality, the way that bad crossovers do. One of the things I like about the Meridian processor I am using is that I cannot hear any degradation in sound quality with the addition of the room correction circuit.
Having said that, in an ideal world, I would not use room correction. I would solve bass problems by treating the room. But my current room is not dedicated, so large bass traps are not feasible for me. Similarly, in an ideal world, I would not use a reclocker. But my transport, Sonos, which I chose primarily for the user interface, is high in jitter. Without the reclocker, it audibly degrades the sound quality of the system. The point is that much of the digital processing in my system is a compromise, brought about by the limitations of my room and the limitations of my transport. But I do dream of a day when I have a dedicated room and a more purist system. I certainly see the appeal in that.
Returning to the subject of neutrality, the point I was trying to make in my last post is that sometimes deviations from neutrality at the component level can result in greater neutrality at the system level, and that neutrality at the system level is more important, since that is what we hear at the listening position. I recognize, however, that this approach must be used judiciously, or the system's neutrality will be largely an illusion created by counterbalancing colorations, which diminishes resolution and makes the system a house of cards. |
Bryoncunningham- You name two instances where I deem no conflict. Although I rather like the punctuality of the timing in my system, I could see testing that against what you advocate. As far as I know, clocking is a separate entity, and will not flub up the signal.
I also believe that using room correction actually does congeal the bass nicely. I have heard that here. The problem with my dibole/bipole, the poor device saw two different points of origin, and really muffed up the midrange and highs. |
Muralman - I agree that noise, like distortion, diminishes the neutrality of a component or system. As far as neutrality being a "very tall order," it is worth keeping in mind that neutrality is a matter of degree. It is not a binary state. As colorations are decreased in a component/system, neutrality is increased. Hence a component/system may APPROXIMATE neutrality, to a greater or lesser degree. This was discussed at great length in this thread, though I'm not recommending that you go back and read the whole thread, unless you are prepared to sacrifice half a day of your life. :-) Concerning your view that "every circuit detracts from the very notion of neutrality," you mentioned something similar in your post on this thread from 12/02/09, where you wrote: It has been my experience less is more. My wires can't be more simple. The DAC lacks a filter chip. The preamp is spartan. Every little change proclaims itself loudly, training me to go simple. I think this is a valid point of view, though I have not approached system building the same way, as I wrote in reply to you on the same day: I don’t have a problem with this idea, in theory. In practice, it has not always been my experience. I can give two examples from assembling my system.
Example #1: The use of Room EQ Wizard software in combination with Meridian Room Correction made a dramatic difference in the quality of bass I was able to achieve in my listening room. This is reflected in a much flatter in-room frequency response below 200Hz, as well as the subjective impression, confirmed by other listeners, that my EQ work significantly improved the timing and transparency of my system. Meridian Room Correction involves intensive real time computation. It is not simple.
Example #2: The addition of a reclocker between my transport and my dac improved my system in at least four areas: (1) increased perceived resolution; (2) better imaging focus; (3) less shrillness in high frequencies; and (4) lower noise floor. The reclocker discards the timing data of a digital audio stream and reclocks the audio data using a high precision clock, thereby reducing jitter. Also, not simple.
...While I agree that complexity provides more opportunities to get things wrong, I think in some cases, it provides opportunities to correct things that are already going wrong. Having said that, it is probably significant that the two examples I mentioned are both in the digital domain. If you look at my system from the point at which it becomes analog, you will notice that it is quite simple: The preamp is in the same unit as the dac (the Meridian), followed by 1 meter of analog interconnects, followed by a Pass amp of very simple design, followed by 2 meters of speaker cable to the speakers. This reflects my partial agreement with you about the value of simplicity. My own view, FWIW, is that simplicity can be a great asset with analog signals, but it is somewhat less essential with digital signals. Here is my reasoning... You may be right that digital signal processing is always a deviation from neutrality AT THE LEVEL OF THE COMPONENT. But it does not follow, and I believe it is not true, that digital signal processing is always a deviation from neutrality AT THE LEVEL OF THE SYSTEM. That is because digital signal processing can compensate for deviations from neutrality ELSEWHERE IN THE SYSTEM. For example, a reclocker compensates for deviations from neutrality in the transport; room correction compensates for deviations from neutrality in the listening room. Hence, I believe that the added complexity of digital signal processing, if used judiciously, can result in greater neutrality AT THE LISTENING POSITION, which is where it counts. Having said that, I have heard digital systems with the kind of circuit simplicity you are advocating, and I agree with you that they can sound excellent. So I am not suggesting that one approach is better than the other. I think there are several paths to a rewarding musical experience. |
Byroncunningham, I was reacting to comments made by posters above concerning digital vs. analog. Sorry about
Neutrality to me defines a system that provides a sound bereft of self noise, or the large part of it. Frankly, I think that is very tall order.
I have discovered a way to approach that ideal. Every circuit detracts from the very notion of neutrality. That is why I profess ridding the circuit of the worst offenders, and keeping cables simple. |
Muralman - I know nothing about your system, and so I cannot comment on your claims, though I assume you recognize how provocative they are.
I myself am a digital only person, so I would like to believe the things you are saying about digital playback. However, having listened to a number of high quality analog systems, I have to confess that they have typically sounded wonderful, in all the ways that analog is famous for. My own view is that it is possible to make digital sound almost like analog, but it is a difficult thing to achieve.
Having said that, the relative merits of digital and analog playback is a topic that is very far afield from the substance of this thread, and so I will now return to my system and try to contain my analog envy. :-) |
I kept believing that digital didn't have it because folks like above said so, and their accumulative wisdom should be right. Then, I seriously started mining the information stored in the 16 bit CD. The deeper I dug, the more digital gave forth. Encouraged, I kept at it. Now, in just the last few days, I took my system into it's most revelatory status yet. I know my system is surely better than any vinyl system I have heard.
It is my opinion CDs are not the problem. It is the CD player that is at fault, with cabling stirring more sediment up. The digital player industry has been pushing one digital devil fix on us on another. Oversampling, upsampling, jitter, dithering, and filtering have battered the music signal beyond recognition as is attested to by previous posters compalints.
My source sets the picture for the system's playback. My speaker is able to express the whole of the picture. So, the source is where it is at. I use a transport that measures it's circuit in millimeters. It certainly does nothing to, "Improve," the signal on it's way out. The receiving DAC is just as hands off, though not quite as simple.
I will challenge anyone to detect any defect in this playback, one that has only been clocked, read, and played. The depth of material inserted into the 16 bit CD is simply phenomenal. |
Interesting comments by Learsfool and Bryoncunningham. For myself, I would say that digital photography is FAR ahead of digital audio. Agreed, and again because the music distribution companies limit what the public has access to whereas camera manufacturers MUST do their best for creators (photographers) who will move to better systems to please their clients and justify their fees. The serious point is that the audiophile has some role in controlling the representation of the musical event, but a far lesser role, it seems to me, than the photographer has in controlling the representation of a visual event. Well said by Bryon, and again the photographer has tools to create an ORIGINAL work, pretty much limited only by what he and the client are willing to spend. If the new Nikon and Canon 24 Million chip is not enough, there are large cameras with associated computer in tether that can create files so large that almost anything can be done with them (resolution wise). The digital image business is driven by advertising and commercial and somewhat by portrait and wedding. When Apple makes billions offering MP3, then Sony, Phillips and others that have the power to offer ultimate digital music to us feel it would be pearls before swine. That's a shame because I suspect the original high resolution digital file (in the studio) would stun us into silence in our complaints about the shortcoming of digital audio. Sadly it seems we will not be offered that quality level and for that reason I purchase as many analog master tapes as possible. That's as good as it gets for us music lovers until something better is offered. 15 IPS half track probably compares in the analog photo world to the beautiful 8X10 Kodak and Fuji chromes from my Swiss made Sinar view camera. Most people have no concept how much resolution a piece of film this size contains. Area is greater than an entire roll (36 exposures) of 35MM film, simply stunning. |
To pick up on something Albert mentions in his post...
The analogy between photography and audio playback, although useful and interesting, has an significant limitation: The analogue to the photographer is NOT the audiophile, but rather the recording engineer. The recording engineer controls how the musical event is represented in the recording, just as the photographer controls how the visual event is represented in the photograph. The audiophile only controls how the RECORDING is represented by his system. That makes the audiophile the analogue of the gallery owner. Yikes!
The serious point is that the audiophile has some role in controlling the representation of the musical event, but a far lesser role, it seems to me, than the photographer has in controlling the representation of a visual event. |
Hi guys - Cdc, Bryon, and Albert, you made some very interesting points, which I agree with as well. Cdc, on the photography issues, yes photographers also have heated debates over the merits of the latest digital technology vs. the older equipment. I have a cousin who is a professional photographer, and he likes to say that most serious photographers only use the digital cameras for going to a location and taking a great many pictures at once. Then they go back, look carefully over them, choose the exact shot they want, and go back to the location and set up their "real" camera, as he calls it. Of course, there are many professionals who have switched over to the all digital stuff and who would vehemently disagree. For myself, I would say that digital photography is FAR ahead of digital audio. |
Not all better tools belong to fools!!! Nuance at some point becomes the goal, finer and finer detail be it musical instrument, brushes, paints, cameras, race boats, race cars etc.... justifiable advancements in the pursuit of one's personal quest of beauty. Necessary? Maybe not but it's enjoyable to use/design fine equipment/pieces etc.... |
"A camera has only one eye"
It hasn't always been so, but beyond the novelty of stereo cameras and viewers, it passed and mono prevailed. Interesting that the depth it provided was seen for what it was, yet in audio some folks still think more can be accomplished to enhance our experience of listening to music when it is in stereo.
Like photographers getting all caught up in equipment and its performance, audiophiles get all caught up in equipment and its sound, neither of which have much to do with the creativity of either art form. IMHO. |
Can Albert Porter explain the photography thing for us? I'm sure a lot of people spend big money on cameras too in the name of accuracy stuff like depth of field, sharp focus, correct colors. But why then is that okay, while an expensive stereo is crazy?
Cdc (System | Threads | Answers | This Thread) Thanks for the email heads up on this thread, I've been totally slammed with both stereo buzz and photo work. I'm happy to have Boy Scouts of America job on Monday, which should be a blast. As for expensive cameras versus expensive stereo, they do different things (obviously). A photographer is the creator of the image and gets to own the original (highest quality) version of the image captured regardless if it's film or digital. With stereo we audiophiles are typically last in line, we take what the artists and recording companies offer and hope to recreate that as close to possible to what we hope is an accurate version of the event. It gets difficult with music since many artists alter the music with effects and then the recording chain alters it again, sometimes even deliberately limiting frequencies, compressing or otherwise making the music "more suitable" for the masses. With both photography and music there is a hope to capture beauty, emotion and accuracy as best we can. The big limitation with photography is the camera has only one "eye" where we see with two. At lest in modern recordings we have stereo (or multichannel) which at least attempts to recreate the space and multiple sounds that we experience in real life. With either it's a very difficult task. We should be grateful to have all the technology we have today. Stereo has never been better and regardless if you prefer Ansel Adams Black and White approach or ultra high resolution digital we at least have a choice. |
I agree with you. Just because a recording is not perfectly accurate does not mean you should throw the whole accuracy thing away. Just giving a different perspective that the best you can hope for is a perfect reproduction of the recording, not to reproduce the live event. The way most recordings I listen to sound, no need for me to go much beyond what I have now.
So some of my points are:
1) If we all want perfect accuracy, then if one stereo had perfect accuracy in all regards, we'd all own the same stereo.
2) I think a lot of hi-end audio is about making a mountain out of a molehill to justify hanging a huge price tag on it.
3) People get so hung up on comparing component A to B, trying to hear the smallest of nuances, that they lose site of the big picture of how close is ANY of it to reality.
How about big picture reasoning that, for example, you could spend $10,000 for wire, etc. on a passive system when you'd be better off spending the $10,000 to go active. Or going with a dipole speaker like Linkwitz Orions vs. a monkey coffin?
The photography analogy is relevant because they are going for the same thing as audiophiles except it is visual and so less abstract. It's a different perspective of the same concept. If we could see sound, it would be like the photography people. Maybe a whole lot less disagreements too. Are photography chat sites as debated as audio? Probably not as it's easier to understand and you can decide for yourself. But with audio, being so abstract, we need each other's help to figure the whole mess out. Makes for good socializing though.
Can Albert Porter explain the photography thing for us? I'm sure a lot of people spend big money on cameras too in the name of accuracy stuff like depth of field, sharp focus, correct colors. But why then is that okay, while an expensive stereo is crazy? |
Has there ever been the assumption that a photo or painting could be mistaken for the real thing? Does that make it any less beautiful? Why should audio be any different?...
...for many, the fundamental goal of stereo reproduction is the illusion of the real thing. Not so for photographers. Maybe they are saving themselves a whole bunch of grief not trying to chase down the impossible.
Let's start at the beginning. Are there any recordings that truly sound real? Maybe the best one can hope for is perfect reproduction of what is on the original recording. Because even those are an artistic interpretation by the recording studio, just like a photograph. Cdc - You raise interesting and provocative questions, but I'm not sure exactly what point of view you are expressing. It sounds like you are saying that, since recordings are themselves "interpretations" of musical events, accuracy in playback is not especially important, particularly for those who value beauty above other things. My own view is that accuracy and beauty are related in the following way: As system accuracy increases, the beauty you hear is the beauty of the RECORDING, rather than the beauty of the SYSTEM. It may seem inconsequential whether the beauty you hear comes from the recording or the system. But I believe it's important, for the following reason: The beauty of a system is largely CONSTANT, whereas the beauty of recordings is infinitely VARIABLE. To illustrate with your analogy... As you point out, a photograph is an "interpretation" of an event, in the sense that the characteristics of the photograph - color, contrast ratio, depth of field, etc. - are not identical to the characteristics of the event that the photograph represents. It may be tempting to conclude from this that the presentation of that photograph – i.e. its display for viewing – might as well be an "interpretation" that maximizes the beauty of the photographs. So you decide, for example, to display a group of photographs under a pleasing golden light. By doing do, you may increase the CONSISTENCY of the beauty in the photographs (to those who find golden light beautiful), but you decrease the VARIETY of beauty among the photographs (assuming the photos are color). By giving the photographs a uniform yellow tint, you have reduced their visual diversity, and therefore reduced the variety of beauty in their presentation. A more ACCURATE presentation – i.e. uniform white light, white walls, etc. – would provide greater visual diversity, and therefore greater opportunity for variety in the beauty of the photographs. This highlights the value of accuracy even for those who value beauty above all else: Increasing the accuracy of the presentation increases the VARIETY of the beauty presented. In my view, the situation with musical playback is precisely the same. As you point out, a recording is an “interpretation” of a musical event, in the sense that the characteristics of the recording – dynamic range, frequency response, transient response, etc. – are not identical to the characteristics of the event that the recording represents. It may be tempting to conclude from this that the presentation of the recording – i.e. its playback – might as well be an "interpretation" that maximizes the beauty of the recordings. So you decide, for example, to use an amp that provides pleasing harmonic distortion. By doing so, you may increase the CONSISTENCY of the beauty in the recordings played back in the system, but you decrease the VARIETY of beauty among the recordings. By giving the recordings a uniform harmonic signature, you have reduced their sonic diversity, and therefore reduced the variety of beauty in their presentation. A more ACCURATE presentation – i.e. lower in colorations – would provide greater sonic diversity, and therefore greater opportunity for variety in the beauty of the recordings. This highlights the value of accuracy, even for those who value beauty above all else: Increasing the accuracy of the presentation increases the VARIETY of the beauty presented. For this reason, I don’t believe that the fact that a recording is an “interpretation” of a musical event supports the conclusion that accuracy is irrelevant for those who value beauty above other things. Even for people who value beauty above all else, accuracy is an important consideration, because it provides the opportunity to experience a greater variety of beauty. |
Tholt, I agree that for many, the fundamental goal of stereo reproduction is the illusion of the real thing. Not so for photographers. Maybe they are saving themelves a whole bunch of grief not trying to chase down the impossible.
Let's start at the beginning. Are there any recordings that truly sound real? Maybe the best one can hope for is perfect reproduction of what is on the original recording. Because even those are an artistic interpretation by the recording studio, just like a photograph. For example, mic placement can hugely alter how an event is sounds.
So where did this goal come from? Stereophile and the other mag's propagate this so people spend more money trying to achieve what is, dare I say, unachievable. Was this always the goal of hi-end audio? Even back in the 60's when it was considered a main stream, legitimate endeavor by society.
Fact is, when you insert even one wire into the chain, you have irreversibly altered the signal so it is not real anymore.
So when you have the illusion of the real thing in your living room is the stereo creating the illusion or is the listener deceiving himself? Sometimes on first listen and for short periods of time, reproduced audio can be mistaken for the real thing. The classic case is the audio reviewer whose wife calls in from the other room and says it sounds real. Sure, brief non-critical listening. It can happen.
The longer I listen, the more the pieces of phoniness start to make themselves known. In any system. Maybe that's why people keep changing their stereo over and over. The more you listen, the more you hear the defects and thinks by change, they will go away. They do until the new shortcoming pop up. Yes, you can upgrade and the problems are less, but they are never going to go away completely. So where do you stop the madness?
I talked to this one guy who started with Epos and made the rounds for 5 years with many different speakers. I asked him how he compared what he had now to the Epos - balancing out pros an cons - in HIS particular situation. He paused, thought about it, and admitted he really had just been going in circles and had really accomplished nothing. It's all about the journey, I guess.
I see folks getting so into the trees they don't see the forest. For example, John Marks in October 2010 Stereophile who upgrades to Cardas wire and notices the sound is clearer with more bass. But what about the overall perspective that, say, their system with a passive x-over is fundamentally flawed and they are only "polishing a turd"? |
@ Cdc, short answer, no and no. But who has ever mistaken a photo or a painting as the real thing? The goal of stereo reproduction is fundamentally different in that regard. |
Has there ever been the assumption that a photo or painting could be mistaken for the real thing? Does that make it any less beautiful? Why should audio be any different?
Sometimes they all bring our a beauty that was hidden even when we saw the real thing. |
Thanks for the recommendation, Bryon. My uncle, who taught philosophy, has given me a couple of books as well, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I think I am going to tackle mythology first, actually. I have read a few logic books, and I took a logic course in college, but that is the extent of the philosophy background I have. |
Learsfool - Thanks for those kind words. I'm glad we understand each other's point of view better, and perhaps we are even a step or two closer to agreement. But even if we still disagree, it has been an interesting and rewarding discussion. You have been an excellent adversary. I very much doubt that I would have had the impulse to explore these ideas so thoroughly had it not been for your thoughtful opposition.
BTW, if you are interested in a very concise and accessible introduction to philosophy, try Thomas Nagel's WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?, available on Amazon. |
Very interesting, Bryon, thanks very much for that very informative post. I have not yet really studied philosophy, though I intend to, and was not aware that there was such a big difference between the normal/philosophical definitions of those terms. This does make what you have said lately make much more sense to me now. I have really enjoyed this whole thread, and have learned a great deal from you. I also greatly envy your ability to express yourself so clearly with words. You are definitely a great asset to this community, sir! |
But WHY do you say that a Subjectivist is unable to judge the truthfulness of a recording without acting as an Objectivist, especially in light of the fact that human judgement is ultimately subjective? Is this because a Subjectivist would not believe that the recording could be truthful…? In a word, Yes. A Subjectivist does not believe in objective truth. That is what it means to be a Subjectivist. It is important not to be misled by the ordinary definitions of 'subjective' and 'objective.' My desktop dictionary defines them as follows: (1) subjective: based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions. (2) objective: not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. These are good description of the ordinary concepts of ‘subjective’ and ‘objective,’ but NOT of the philosophical concepts of ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ that are the basis of Subjectivism and Objectivism. Being a Subjectivist about X does NOT mean that you are “subjective” about X, in the sense of (1) above. Being a Subjectivist about X means that you do not believe in objective truths about X. Being an Objectivist about X does NOT mean that you are “objective” about X, in the sense of (2) above. Being an Objectivist about X means that you believe in objective truths about X. So… (1) An Objectivist about X believes in objective truths about X. (2) A Subjectivist about X does not believe in objective truths about X. This was precisely the nature of the disagreement throughout this thread regarding neutrality… (1) An Objectivist about neutrality believes in objective truths about neutrality. (2) A Subjectivist about neutrality does not believe in objective truths about neutrality. And regarding colorations… (1) An Objectivist about colorations believes in objective truths about colorations. (2) A Subjectivist about colorations does not believe in objective truths about colorations. I am an Objectivist about both neutrality and colorations. That is to say, I believe in objective truths about both neutrality and colorations. This has been my view all along. In my post on 11/07, I wrote: I wasn't suggesting that audiophiles should be "objective." An Objectivist is not someone who is objective. An Objectivist is someone who believes that there is such a thing as truth. An Objectivist, with respect to sonic neutrality, therefore, is a person who believes that components and systems can be evaluated as to their "truthfulness." Sometimes you hear that expressed in terms of "what is on the recording." [i.e. accuracy] Other times you hear that expressed in terms of the real-world event that the recording captured. [i.e. transparency]…To put another one of my cards on the table: I am an Objectivist, in the sense above, with respect to sonic neutrality. That is to say, I believe that some components and systems reproduce recordings more truthfully than others. I wrote this just two days after I began this thread. I mention this to point out that my views on Objectivism and Subjectivism have been constant from the beginning. In my more recent posts, I have gone to great lengths to try to acknowledge the role and value of subjective characteristics in audio playback and music recording. In my post on 12/12, I wrote: Acknowledging Learsfool’s objections, we make the definition of ‘coloration’ more subjective:
COLORATION: Inaccuracies audible as a non-random** sonic signature. This is an acknowledgement that colorations are subjective in the sense that they DEPEND UPON PERSONS to be perceived. But this is still a form of Objectivism, as I pointed out in the same post: The second advantage of these new proposals is that they bring the conflicting views of the Objectivist and the Subjectivist one step closer together. It is only a step, though, since the new definition of ‘coloration’ I am proposing is only subjective in the sense that it includes facts about the subject, facts that, I believe, are themselves largely OBJECTIVE. So this is not a retreat from Objectivism, so much as it is an acknowledgement that understanding coloration and neutrality is partly a matter of understanding HOW INACCURACIES ARE PERCEIVED. In other words, acknowledging subjective characteristics in audio playback and music recording is fully compatible with Objectivism, since it is perfectly consistent to be AN OBJECTIVIST ABOUT SUBJECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS. Psychologists, for example, are objectivists about subjective characteristics. That is to say, the characteristics they study – attention, perception, memory, learning, conceptualization, etc. – are subjective characteristics, because they all depend upon persons to exist. But the attitude psychologists adopt toward those characteristics is that of Objectivism, because they believe in objective truths about those same characteristics. This is precisely my stance toward colorations. They are subjective characteristics, and yet I believe in objective truths about them. But to say that I believe in objective truths about colorations (or neutrality) is not to say that our KNOWLEGE of them is objective. Truth is always objective, but knowledge is always subjective. I made this point in my last post, where I suggested that: (i) Truth is objective. (ii) Judgments about truth are subjective. The acknowledgement, in (i), that truth is objective, means that truth is independent of persons and their characteristics. It does NOT mean that truth can be KNOWN independently of persons and their characteristics, since all knowing involves persons. The acknowledgement, in (ii), that all judgments are subjective means that all judgments are dependent upon persons and their characteristics. It does NOT mean that all judgments are EQUALLY subjective. Some judgments are less subjective than others. Adding this to (i) and (ii) above, we get: (i) Truth is objective. (ii) Judgments about truth are subjective. (iii) Some judgments about truth are less subjective than others. The reasoning here is similar to my reasoning earlier in this thread when I argued that… (ii) All water is contaminated. (iii) Some water is less contaminated than others. And… (ii) All playback systems are colored. (iii) Some playback systems are less colored than others. With this same reasoning, I am now claiming that: (ii) All judgments about truth are subjective. (iii) Some judgments about truth are less subjective than others. The acknowledgment, in (iii), that some judgments about truth are less subjective than others, means that some judgments are more reliable than others. In my last post, I said that the judgment of an expert listener is more reliable than that of a naive listener. The relation between expertise and the reliability of judgments about truthfulness is a point I first introduced in my post on 12/15: …as a person develops expert perception with respect to the playback of recorded music, I believe that COLORATIONS become more audible. In fact, I would view this a one of the standards for judging the expertise of the listener. This comment about colorations could just as easily have been about truthfulness. In other words, I could have said, “As a person develops expert perception with respect to the playback of recorded music, I believe that DEVIATIONS FROM TRUTHFULNESS become more audible.” In other words, the perception of colorations, or deviations from truthfulness, is easier for experts. That is why experts' judgments about truthfulness (or coloration, or neutrality, or accuracy, or transparency) are more reliable than those of naive listeners. And we must say that, or we become Radical Subjectivists, which in my view, is a reductio ad absurdum of Subjectivism. Finally, the concept of ‘expertise’ brings us back to the ordinary concepts of ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ stated at the beginning of this post, where I said that being an Objectivist about X does NOT mean that you are “objective” about X, in the sense of “not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.” However, there is someone for whom being “objective,” in this ordinary sense, is an important quality. That person is an expert! In other words, it is an important feature of expertise that a person tries not to be influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. That is, of course, nothing more than a “regulatory ideal.” Even experts cannot be perfectly objective. But they can do their best, and sometimes their best is good enough. |
Very informative post, Bryon! I am still unclear on my original question, though. I follow your discussion about truth being objective and human judgement subjective, and I do not find that strange. But WHY do you say that a Subjectivist is unable to judge the truthfulness of a recording without acting as an Objectivist, especially in light of the fact that human judgement is ultimately subjective? Is this because a Subjectivist would not believe that the recording could be truthful, or is there some other reason? It seems to me that even if he does not believe a recording could be truthful, that he could still judge how close it comes to it, especially since this judgement is subjective. |
Correction: Half way through my post, I wrote: "Truth is not objective, which is why, in my post on 1/18, I wrote..." It should read: "Truth is not SUBJECTIVE, which is why..." |
Learsfool – Regarding the issue of what counts as a performance, my thoughts are similar to Cbw’s. But I must reiterate that this issue is tangential, at best, to the issue of Objectivism vs. Subjectivism. Because of that, this is one of the few times I will say that I have no dog in this fight. So, moving on... My remaining confusion still lies in exactly what you mean by truthfulness, as you say that your transparency definition is only a part of it… Almost. I didn’t say that transparency is a PART of truthfulness, but I did say that transparency is a KIND of truthfulness. I know that probably sounds like I am splitting hairs, but there is a genuine difference. To say that transparency is a PART of truthfulness would be to say that there is ANOTHER PART to truthfulness, in which case I would need to say what that other part is. To say that transparency is a KIND of truthfulness is to say that there are OTHER KINDS of truthfulness, which there most certainly are. Other kinds of truthfulness exist because other kinds of representations exist, things like: verbal statements, photographs, and scientific theories, to name just a few. These are different kinds of representations. For example, a photograph is an IMAGISTIC representation, in that it RESEMBLES the thing it represents. But a verbal statement is not an imagistic representation, since it does not RESEMBLE the thing it represents. Because there are different kinds of representations, there are different kinds of truthfulness, but what they all have in common is “correspondence to reality.” In addition to other kinds of truthfulness relating to other kinds of representations, there is also, I think, another kind of truthfulness that relates to music recordings, namely, ACCURACY, i.e. how much information about the music is preserved as it passes from the software to the ear. I mentioned this in my post on 1/18 only in passing, because my focus was truthfulness understood as transparency, not as accuracy. My confusion lies in what you mean by truthfulness overall, then, especially with regard to 6a. Are you saying that a Subjectivist cannot evaluate the truthfulness of a recording? I think Cbw’s answer to this is correct. That is, a Subjectivist can evaluate the truthfulness of a recording, but when he does, he is ACTING AS an Objectivist. Indeed, judging the truthfulness of a representation is WHAT IT MEANS TO BE an Objectivist. I would disagree strongly, however, that a Subjectivist would be unable to judge how close a recording comes to the live, real event it is a representation of. In fact, this would also ultimately be a subjective judgement, I believe, despite some objectivist measures being needed. Again, a Subjectivist who sets out to judge the truthfulness of a recording is ACTING AS AN OBJECTIVIST WHEN HE DOES SO. It was this observation that motivated the ecumenical ideas in my post on 1/18, where I tried to show that there are times when the attitude of Subjectivism is more warranted, and times when the attitude of Objectivism is more warranted. As far as your comment that judging the truthfulness of a music recording is “ultimately a subjective judgment,” this is most certainly true, but does not have the consequence you seem to think. Judgments about the truthfulness of a music recording are subjective simply because ALL JUDGMENTS ARE BY DEFINITION SUBJECTIVE, since they are made by persons. Even scientific judgments are subjective, since they are made by persons. But it does not follow from the inherently subjective nature of judgments that TRUTH is subjective. Truth is not objective, which is why, in my post on 1/18, I wrote: (4) The truth of a representation is its objective correspondence to reality.
The meaning behind the word “objective” here is that the truth or falsity of a representation depends only upon its correspondence to how things actually are. It does not depend upon OUR BELIEFS about how things actually are. Another way of understanding these comments is to say: (i) Truth is objective. (ii) Judgments about truth are subjective. This is the case whether we are talking about music recordings, scientific theories, or any representations whatsoever. Truth is always objective, and judgments about truth are always subjective. If you find that strange, you are not alone. The inherent objectivity of truth and the inherent subjectivity of human judgments is an irony of the universe. But the inherent subjectivity of human judgments does not mean we must abandon the idea of objective truth. It only means we must abandon the idea of CERTAINTY. Certainty is what is lost, and fallibility is what is acknowledged, when you understand (i) and (ii). If we had the mind of God, things would be different. Bringing this back to music recordings: When we set out to judge the truthfulness of a recording, we are de facto Objectivists, because the belief in truthfulness of a recording is the belief in the OBJECTIVE correspondence of the recording to a real musical event. But since we are relying our own human minds in this activity, our judgments are invariably subjective. A consequence of these realities is that we must give up any ambition to be CERTAIN about our judgments about the truthfulness of music recordings. But that’s not all that bad. Having said that, it is NOT a consequence of these realities that we are left with nothing to differentiate good judgments from bad ones. The acknowledgement that all judgments are subjective does not mean that all judgments are created equal. Some judgments are much more reliable than others. In other words, I do not advocate a Radical Subjectivism about human judgments, i.e., the idea that all judgments are equally valid. In my view, that is the height of postmodern absurdity. What rescues us from Radical Subjectivism is the concept of 'expertise.' In your recent posts, you cited several times your own expertise as a musician as relevant to your judgments about the truthfulness of a recording, and I quite agree with you. It is precisely your expertise that makes your judgments more reliable than those of a naive listener, which is a point I made at length in a previous post. So, in judging the truthfulness of music recordings, we are left with judgments that are always uncertain, always fallible, and always subjective, but sometimes expert. This isn't so bad. The situation is precisely the same for scientists, and look how much they have accomplished. |
Cbw, the example I gave in my last post was of computer music being played back to a live audience, not someone listening to it on their own on their own system. I thought this was clear from the context, I apologize.
However, I think most people would agree that any recording of music meant to be listened to, whatever the context, is a performance; it is just not a live performance. In fact, this thread is the first time I have ever seen that concept disputed. Let me rephrase my statement as a question: if music is not performed, what is it? |
Learsfool, I don't think I can be as accommodating as Bryon on your definition of "performance" to include playback. A performance is an event, unique in time and space, and as such, can never be repeated. The performance can be recorded and played back, but that is (to use Bryon's terminology) a representation of the performance, not the performance itself. (Unless you are considering your audio system's speakers, for example, as participating in the performance, in which case I think you are conflating the terms "performance" and "playback," and our disagreement is more semantic than philosophical.) If, as you suggest, musicians consider playback to be performance, then I submit that that belief is idiosyncratic to that group, and not consistent with the ordinary understanding and usage of the term "performance." Are you saying that a Subjectivist cannot evaluate the truthfulness of a recording?? A Subjectivist can evaluate the truthfulness of a recording, but he is acting as an Objectivist when he does so. |
wow, what an academic series of discussions which have not been proven relevant to the satisfaction accruing from listening to music.
the key word is "proof". can someone offer up a study which shows as one approaches a neutral presentation of recorded music, one's enjoyment increases ? |
Hi Bryon - first, the performance discussion. All music MUST be performed, otherwise it has no function or purpose (some would even argue that it has no existence without performance, though I am not sure if I would go that far). Even a completely electronic composition of the type you describe (and which I have hands on experience with myself), despite being composed and entered into the computer over a long period of time, IS eventually played back in real time in it's entirety, and this act does constitute a performance of the work. Otherwise, what is the point of creating the work in the first place, if no one is ever going to hear it? The main difference is that there are no human "performers," only a computer. Another big difference is that all performances of the work are exactly the same, unless the composer edits the work. Some composers are very attracted to the idea of having no human error messing up their performance, and the idea of being the sole interpreter of the work as well. There is no third party between them and their audience. But most certainly they are considering an audience listening to a performance when they create the work.
As for the truthfulness/transparency thing, I think we were indeed using the terms differently. I could state a bit more about how I would use some of these terms differently from you, but this is your thread, and it will keep things much simpler to use your terms. After reading your last post a few times, I think I understand what you mean by all of your terms. I think before I was also confused sometimes about whether your real/virtual discussion referred to the recording or to the live event, though I should hasten to add that this confusion was mine, not yours. My remaining confusion still lies in exactly what you mean by truthfulness, as you say that your transparency definition is only a part of it (which, if I have understood correctly, I certainly agree with). Again, if you are speaking only about transparency as the correspondence between your 1) and 2), and not overall truthfulness, then I think your 5a is correct, and we are in agreement there.
My confusion lies in what you mean by truthfulness overall, then, especially with regard to 6a. Are you saying that a Subjectivist cannot evaluate the truthfulness of a recording?? If you mean by this that a Subjectivist believes a recording can never be completely truthful, then I agree. It seems quite clear that there certainly is not now and never will be a recording made that anyone would mistake for a live event, for many different reasons. I would disagree strongly, however, that a Subjectivist would be unable to judge how close a recording comes to the live, real event it is a representation of. In fact, this would also ultimately be a subjective judgement, I believe, despite some objectivist measures being needed. For example, two different sets of microphones in different set-ups recording the same live event. Which one is closer to the truth? Perspective would matter greatly here. |
Musicians consider all recordings to be performances. The difference between a live and a recorded performance is that the recorded performance is permanent, and a live performance is not. The idea that all recordings should be considered performances is strange to me. It is not merely the fact that some electronic music involves no real instruments. It is the fact that much electronic music is never PLAYED IN REAL TIME. It is ASSEMBLED OVER MANY HOURS OR DAYS in a computer software program. I have personally worked with electronic composers who create recordings this way. To call their work a “performance” seems to stretch the limits of any ordinary use of the term. However, since you are a professional musician and I am not, I will defer to you that musicians consider all recordings to be performances. Having said that, this disagreement is quite tangential to the main issue of my post on 1/18, which is the source of our current disagreement. So, to return to that… This brings me to "truthfulness" vs. "transparency." Bryon, you seem to equate these two things, and this is where the confusion lies. This is almost correct. In my post on 1/18, I did not EQUATE transparency and truthfulness, but I did propose that we think of transparency as a KIND of truthfulness. Specifically, I proposed that we think of transparency as... …how much the information presented at the ear during playback resembles the information that was presented at the microphone during the actual performance. It does not matter whether we disagree about this conceptualization of transparency. “Transparency” is simply the term I chose, following Almarg’s suggestion, to refer to the CORRESPONDENCE between… (1) The information presented at the ear during playback, and (2) The information presented at the microphone during the performance. I have called the correspondence between (1) and (2) "transparency." But you can call it anything you like. The important thing is not the term, but what I have used the term to mean, namely, the correspondence between (1) and (2). That correspondence is a KIND OF TRUTHFULNESS, which I will now try to show again... Since (1) refers to a REPRESENTATION of an event and (2) refers to the REAL EVENT that it represents, then “transparency,” as I am using the term, refers to the CORRESPONDENCE of a REPRESENTATION to a REAL EVENT. And the correspondence between a representation and a real event is the MEANING of truthfulness. Hence transparency, in the sense of the correspondence between (1) and (2) above, is a KIND OF truthfulness (but not the only kind, since music recordings are not the only kind of representations). I think your continuum IS correct IF you are speaking of transparency, not truthfulness. In my view, a recording can be very transparent yet not truthful… You are either using a different meaning of “transparent” or a different meaning of “truthful” than the meanings I used in my post on 1/18, and in all my posts since, including this one. I suspect that you are using the term “transparent” differently. I do not want to squabble over the use of the term. If you object to my usage, you can substitute whatever word you like whenever I use the term, so long as you understand your substitute as referring to the correspondence between (1) and (2) above. Only if one has familiarity with the performers and the venue can one accurately judge the truthfulness of a recording…I am able to apply this objectivist perspective in this way because I am VERY familiar with the hall and my colleagues. If one is not familiar with these things, then all one can do is guess at the truthfulness of the recording - you can only know approximately… I completely agree with this. What you are describing here, however, is not WHAT MAKES a representation/recording truthful, but rather HOW YOU JUDGE whether a representation/recording is truthful. In my post on 1/18, I was proposing ideas about WHAT MAKES a representation/recording truthful, namely, its correspondence to the real event. I was not proposing ideas about HOW YOU JUDGE whether a representation/recording is truthful. If one is not familiar with these things, then all one can do is guess at the truthfulness of the recording - you can only know approximately…Therefore you would really be applying a subjectivist, not an objectivist perspective, because you don't really know what the live event sounded like. You would have to use your own personal reference point for how you think it is supposed to sound. I agree with this as well. If you do not know what real performance sounded like, then you are far less well equipped to evaluate a recording of it in terms of its objective correspondence to the real event, simply because you don’t know what the real event sounded like. In that case, you would be left to evaluate the recording in terms of preference, which is most certainly subjective. But none of this seems to me to be inconsistent with my proposals on 1/18 or my defense of them since. Here are the proposals you objected to: (5a) The more a music recording represents a REAL musical event, the MORE it can be judged as to its truthfulness.
(5b) The more a music recording represents a VIRTUAL musical event, the LESS it can be judged as to its truthfulness.
(6a) Music recordings of REAL events can be evaluated as to their truthfulness. And to evaluate a recording’s truthfulness is to adopt the point of view of Objectivism.
(6b) Music recordings of VIRTUAL events cannot be evaluated as to their truthfulness, though they can be evaluated in terms of preference. And to evaluate a recording in terms of preference is to adopt the point of view of Subjectivism. (5a) is intended to describe a NECESSARY condition for judging the truthfulness of a recording, namely the recording must represent a “real-ish” event. (5a) is NOT intended to describe SUFFICIENT conditions for judging the truthfulness of a recording. As you point out, (5a) is not a sufficient condition for judging the truthfulness of a recording, since there is at least one other necessary condition: familiarity with the real event the recording represents. (5b) is simply the converse of (5a) (6a) is partly a restatement of (5a), and partly intended to point out that Objectivism – the view that a representation can be evaluated as to its truthfulness – is more warranted when recordings represent real events, simply because the truthfulness of a representation REQUIRES that there be a real event for the representation to correspond to. That is the MEANING of truth. And this is not an idiosyncratic definition of truth. If I defer to you, as a professional musician, about the meaning of “performance” as used by musicians, please believe me, as a professionally trained philosopher, that truth is used by philosophers and scientists alike to mean “correspondence to reality.” And if you will grant me that, then it is a short step to the conclusion that a necessary condition for judging the truthfulness of a representation (whether it is a recording, or any representation) is that there is or was a real event that the representation represents. In light of this, judging the truthfulness of a recording is an act of Objectivism BY DEFINITION, since Objectivism is the view that representations can be evaluated as to their truthfulness. (6b) is simply the converse of (6a). I can assure you that the more mikes used, and the more mixing done (in other words the more virtual the recording), the easier it is to hear where the recording falls short of the live event as far as truthfulness is concerned. I am able to apply this objectivist perspective in this way because I am VERY familiar with the hall and my colleagues. Once again, you are providing ideas (good ones, I think) about HOW TO JUDGE the truthfulness of a recording. I agree with these ideas, but they do not mean I’ve gotten things backwards in (5a) and (5b), or in (6a) and (6b). It only means that the perception of the “virtuality” of a recording make it possible to JUDGE the truthfulness of the recording. In other words, one way to judge the truthfulness of a recording is when it DEVIATES FROM truthfulness. The perception of virtuality in a recording is, in effect, the perception of CONTRAST between the recording and the real event. But for some recordings, there is no real event. When recordings are altered liberally during editing and mixing, they can become so virtual that there is no longer any real event for the recording to correspond to. And if there is no real event for the recording to correspond to, then the recording cannot be judged in terms of its truthfulness, since truthfulness MEANS correspondence to a real event. And if a recording cannot be judged in terms of its truthfulness, then we are left with evaluating it subjectively. Hence the more virtual a recording, the more the attitude of Subjectivism is warranted. |
Cbw and Bryon - you both seem to be assuming that a "performance" must be a live event. Musicians consider all recordings to be performances. The difference between a live and a recorded performance is that the recorded performance is permanent, and a live performance is not. Even a recording made straight to a recording device would therefore be considered a performance, as I mentioned before, with Zappa as one of the more famous examples.
I also understand perfectly that you are speaking of a continuum. I still maintain that you have it backwards, however, IF you are speaking of truthfulness. Let me try a different take, with a live event as an example this time. The more virtual a recording is, by Bryon's definition, the more control the engineer has over the result. I don't think you are disputing this. What I am saying is that this makes it easier, not more difficult, to hear whether or not the engineer has been truthful to the live event. Therefore, applying an objectivist perspective is more warranted, not less, the more virtual the recording.
This brings me to "truthfulness" vs. "transparency." Bryon, you seem to equate these two things, and this is where the confusion lies. I think your continuum IS correct IF you are speaking of transparency, not truthfulness. In my view, a recording can be very transparent yet not truthful (in fact, this is exactly how many musicians describe digital recording in general). This difference in perspective has come up earlier in this thread, when Kijanki brought up sitars, I believe it was, and asked you how you could tell whether the recording was true to it (I am paraphrasing, I did not go back and search the thread for an exact quote). Your response was basically "because I have heard one." To me, this is a subjective, not an objective judgement. Another example - I know you know what a French horn sounds like. However, you have absolutely no idea what MY horn sounds like. If I mailed you two different recordings made of the exact same live performance of mine, you could judge which one was more transparent, but you could not judge which one was more truthful without being familiar with my specific sound (and the same of course goes for the performance space). Only if one has familiarity with the performers and the venue can one accurately judge the truthfulness of a recording. I have much experience with this distinction, having the good fortune to be a professional performer, and to be familiar with a great many different performers and venues through personal experience, both performing and as an audience member. I also regularly listen to all of the archival recordings made by various engineers of my orchestra's classical subscription concerts (I am in fact on the committee which decides what goes over the radio broadcast). Every engineer's recordings sound different, as they place mikes differently, and mix them differently, and edit differently (in fact, each recording each engineer makes sounds different). I can assure you that the more mikes used, and the more mixing done (in other words the more virtual the recording), the easier it is to hear where the recording falls short of the live event as far as truthfulness is concerned. I am able to apply this objectivist perspective in this way because I am VERY familiar with the hall and my colleagues. If one is not familiar with these things, then all one can do is guess at the truthfulness of the recording - you can only know approximately (as you put it when you were speaking of transparency). Therefore you would really be applying a subjectivist, not an objectivist perspective, because you don't really know what the live event sounded like. You would have to use your own personal reference point for how you think it is supposed to sound. You can, however, judge a recording's transparency in the way you suggest, and this application of an objectivist perspective would work how you described.
I know I do not express myself particularly well with words, but I hope this clears up some confusion. |
As soon as anyone else listens to it, it does technically become a performance. Actually, technically, that's a playback of a performance unless the listening is in real time. In that case you have to make the distinction between recording the sound coming out of a speaker (a live event) and recording the data produced by the device (a virtual event). For an electronic device sending a signal directly to the recording medium, the Objectivist viewpoint is impossible because there is nothing to compare the playback to. There was never a "sound" that was recorded. It would be like running a random section of a computer's hard drive through a DAC and asking how it compared to the live event. What live event? As for the rest of your post, I'll let Bryon respond, but he's talking about a continuum that runs from live and acoustic to virtual and electronic, not about placing every recording into one of two categories. As you move across that continuum the Objectivist approach is either more or less valid, not simply valid or invalid. |
Learsfool - I am aware of the extent to which recording, editing, and mixing techniques are employed in music recording, particularly popular music recording. I am also aware of the fact that many of these techniques are standard practice in classical and jazz recordings. But I do not see that these realities eliminate the possibility of evaluating a recording's truthfulness, i.e., its transparency to a real musical event, so long as transparency is understood as being an APPROXIMATION. The transparency of a recording is an approximation TO THE EXTENT THAT: (1) The recording is incomplete or imperfect. (2) The event is not real. RE: (1). Of course, all recordings are incomplete and imperfect, but they are not all EQUALLY incomplete or imperfect. Some are much more incomplete or imperfect than others. Recordings delivered on low resolution formats like MP3, for example, are much more incomplete than recordings delivered on high resolution formats like SACD. Recordings that inadvertently encode gross distortions (e.g., overmodulation distortion, jitter, phase errors) into the signal during the recording process, for example, are much more imperfect than those that do not. RE: (2). As you point out, very few (or perhaps no) recordings are FULLY real, since nearly all recordings involve at least some editing and mixing techniques. So nearly all (or possibly all) recordings are, to some extent, virtual. But they are not all EQUALLY virtual. Some are much more virtual than others. Recordings that make liberal use of recording, editing, and mixing techniques are more virtual than recordings that use those techniques sparingly. This is a common difference between popular music and some audiophile classical recordings, for example. I freely admit that even audiophile classical recordings are, to some extent, virtual. But they seem to me to be, on average, considerably less virtual than most popular music. The point I am making is that, even if we agree that ALL recordings are to some extent virtual, it does not follow, and it is not true, that all recordings are EQUALLY virtual. In other words, some recordings are more real than others, even if no recording is COMPLETELY real. I made this point in a slightly different way in my post on 1/18: Music recordings can be thought of on a continuum according to how REAL or VIRTUAL the event is that the recording represents...At one end of the continuum is a music recording that represents a musical event that is MAXIMALLY REAL...At the other end of the continuum is a music recording that represents a musical event that is MAXIMALLY VIRTUAL...In the middle of the continuum is where the vast majority of music lies... By locating recordings on a CONTINUUM between the (admittedly idealized) extremes of representing fully real and fully virtual musical events, I tried to highlight the fact that important differences exist in the degree to which a recording can be evaluated in terms of its truthfulness, that is, its transparency to a real musical event. And if that is true, I believe, then the attitude of Objectivism is more warranted the more a recording represents a REAL-ISH event, while the attitude of Subjectivism is more warranted the more a recording represents a VIRTUAL-ISH event. |
Hi Bryon - to reply to the first part of your post first, I could certainly quibble with you about that distinction. Especially the "performance" part - one could argue that even a device going straight to a recording medium is still a performance. Frank Zappa certainly thought so, for one. As soon as anyone else listens to it, it does technically become a performance. Also, in your 1) it is still much easier for recording engineers to record an electronic music performance than an acoustic one, for the reasons I have already stated. The difference between 1) and 2) is not as great as you seem to believe, though it is of course there, and I do understand the distinction - certainly the acoustic of the room is eliminated in 2), as is the mike. However, this elimination of variables arguably makes the objectivist perspective even more apropos, not less.
Going back to the real vs. virtual distinction you are making, I must point out that nowadays, and really for quite some time now, just about all recordings made would be virtual by your definition (multiple mikes with different perspectives, music editing, creative mixing techniques). Even a "live" orchestral broadcast on the radio is not usually. The broadcast is very rarely actually live (though that still sometimes does happen) - it is almost always a presentation of the best bits of the weekend. The first movement of the symphony may be from Saturday while the rest is from Sunday, for instance.
In fact, unless a concert is truly being broadcast live over the radio as it is actually being played, there really isn't any such thing as a "real" recording anymore, now that digital recording techniques have completely taken over. There are always many different mikes used, and all kinds of mixing and editing techniques are applied routinely. I know of no orchestra nowadays that releases any commercial recordings without any editing whatsoever, and there is usually a ton of it. Georg Solti was the last conductor I know of who insisted on "one-take" recording (with some funny results sometimes, I might add). It of course goes without saying that all digital recordings have heavy mixing applied to them, which one could argue is a form of editing as well.
And any recording of any pop or jazz singer is done with a digital mike that alters their voice - most of the time this is even done at live performances. The bigger the star, the bigger the mixing board that her/his voice is being put through before it even gets to the speakers. There is far more mixing of rock and pop and country done than with classical or jazz or even folk. There is almost never any such thing as a recording that would not be virtual by your definition anymore, no matter what type of music is involved, and this has been the case for at least two decades now (to use the most conservative estimate, three would probably be more accurate). And as you say, this makes an objectivist viewpoint less and less warranted. This is indeed what I was arguing back when this whole thread first started. |
Learsfool – I believe that you and I are talking about two different kinds of electronic music recordings. In my last post, I was talking about:
(1) A recording in which electronic sounds are produced by a device, performed in a real acoustical space, and recorded with a microphone to a recording medium.
I believe that you are talking about:
(2) A recording in which electronic sounds are produced by a device and recorded DIRECTLY TO THE RECORDING MEDIUM.
In (1), the recording is just like a recording of an acoustical musical event, except that the sounds are produced from electronic “instruments,” rather than acoustical ones.
In (2), there is no performance, no real acoustical space, and no microphone. There is just the device that creates the sound and the recording medium.
I agree with you that recordings as described in (2) are more likely to be ACCURATE representations of the original electronic sounds. You may be right that this is partly attributable to the fact that electronic sounds are less complex than vocal or acoustical ones. But it is also attributable to the fact that MORE THAN HALF THE RECORDING PROCESS HAS BEEN ELIMINATED. The performance has been eliminated. The acoustical space has been eliminated. The microphone has been eliminated. And in some cases, the need for a “field” recording format (distinct from the subsequent “storage” recording format) has been eliminated. It is no wonder, then, that the resulting recording is MORE INHERENTLY ACCURATE, as you suggested.
However, the kind of accuracy just described is not the same as the concept of “truthfulness” I used in my post on 1/18, which was rather: TRANSPARENCY TO THE MUSICAL PERFORMANCE. In the case of music recordings as described in (2), there quite literally IS NO PERFORMANCE. Therefore, the question of the recording’s truthfulness, in the sense in which I’ve been using the term, does not apply.
But all of this seems like a peripheral matter, since the real goal of my post on 1/18 was not to highlight the difference between acoustical and electronic recordings, but rather to highlight the difference between recordings of REAL events and recordings of VIRTUAL events. I only brought up electronically produced sounds as one example of what, in my view, contributes to making a recording “virtual.” Among the other things that make a recording virtual: Multiple microphones with different perspectives, music editing, and the liberal use of creative mixing techniques.
Perhaps the simplest illustration of what makes a musical event virtual is music editing, that is, editing together segments from multiple takes to create the illusion of a single, continuous “performance.” This is done all the time in popular music, and when it is, the performance that is on the recording is, at least partially, VIRTUAL, in the sense that IT NEVER EXISTED IN REALITY. To use an analogy…
Consider a painting of a landscape that never existed, but is a composite of various landscapes drawn from the memory of the painter. In other words, it is a virtual landscape, in the sense that it never existed in reality. As such, the painting cannot be evaluated in terms of its truthfulness, i.e. its correspondence to reality, simply because there is no real landscape for the painting to correspond to. So the question of the truthfulness of the painting does not apply. Hence the attitude of Objectivism about the painting is unwarranted.
As I see it, the case is almost exactly the same with music recordings. Consider a “performance” edited together from many segments of multiple takes recorded over different days. In other words, it is a virtual performance, in the sense that it never existed in reality. As such, it is difficult or perhaps impossible to evaluate the recording in terms of its truthfulness, i.e. its correspondence to reality, because there is no real performance for the recording to correspond to. So the question of the truthfulness of the recording does not apply. Or more precisely, it applies less and less as recordings are more and more edited (since I understand the distinction between real and virtual events as being on a continuum). Hence the more virtual the event a recording represents, the less the attitude of Objectivism is warranted. |
Hi Bryon - good reply. I grant your point that 4) does not necessarily follow from 3) ( truthfulness of types of recordings cannot validly be inferred from the repeatability of types of performances).
However, I completely disagree with you about 4) itself. 4) to me is an obviously true statement (that's why I didn't mention it), and I am a little puzzled as to why you think it is false. Any recording engineer will tell you that electronic instruments are MUCH easier to record than acoustic instruments or voices. Despite the more complex wave forms today's digital systems are capable of creating, these wave forms are still far less complex than those created by acoustic instruments and voices (they still haven't even come close, despite the theoretical potential). The simpler the timbre, the easier it is to reproduce, and the easier it is to tell whether or not the reproduction is "truthful." Electronically produced sounds are also much less affected by room acoustics, at least when we are considering timbre, especially if the room in question is a recording studio. Electronically produced tones can be 100% controlled, regardless of environment, making them much easier to record. You brought up the point that we are less familiar with electronic timbres. This may be true, but I think that this is actually irrelevant, especially since as you said we are speaking of recordings, not the live event. A recording engineer can know EXACTLY how an electronically produced tone is going to sound. This is NEVER true of acoustic instruments or voices, even the same exact player of the same exact instrument in the same exact environment from one day to another. This is a big reason why engineers want to make sure that a recording of any given song or movement of a multi-movement work is finished in one session - it is simply too difficult to reproduce the exact same pitch level on a different session (which is why many engineers/orchestra conductors still forgo patch sessions when making a "live" recording). This is of course no problem for electronic instruments.
Based on the above, then, it follows that one can be much more of an objectivist about electronically produced music. The standard for judging "truthfulness" can be much more, not less exact than with acoustic instruments. |
Learsfool – Interesting thoughts. As I understand you, you are saying: (1) An acoustical musical performance is not repeatable, i.e., identical over multiple iterations. (2) An electronic musical performance is repeatable, i.e., identical over multiple iterations. I agree with this. From (1) and (2), you conclude that: (3) An electronic musical performance is more likely to be "truthful" to (i.e. qualitatively resemble) an "original" musical event than an acoustical musical performance is to its "original" event. I agree with this too, but it does not bear on the claims I made in my last post, because I was not talking about the qualitative resemblance of musical PERFORMANCES, but rather the qualitative resemblance of musical RECORDINGS. You acknowledge this when you say: Now I realize you are speaking of recordings, not live events, but if the standard for recording is to reproduce the live event as closely as possible, it is clearly much easier to come close to the "truth" of [electronic musical events]. In other words, you are concluding, from (3) above, that: (4) A RECORDING of an electronic musical event is more likely to be “truthful” to (i.e. qualitatively resemble) an original musical event than a RECORDING of an acoustical musical event is to its original event. I disagree with this. A recording of an electronic musical event is not inherently more truthful than a recording of an acoustical musical event. However, it may be more difficult to judge the truthfulness of a recording of an electronic musical event, for the reason that we do not have a lifetime of experiences with electronic sounds to compare recordings against, the way we do with voices and acoustical instruments. Hence, recordings of electronic musical events may appear more inherently truthful, because our standards for judging the truthfulness of these recordings are much less exact. In other words, (4) does not follow from (3), and I believe that (4) is false. I think your reasoning incorrectly collapses the distinction between a REPEATED PERFORMANCE and a RECORDING. Although both can be judged as to their qualitative resemblance to an “original” event, they are of course created differently. A repeated performance is created by instruments (in the case of acoustical music) or devices (in the case of electronic music). A recording is created by a playback system. This obvious fact results in another, somewhat less obvious, fact: The inherent TRUTHFULNESS of types of music RECORDINGS (acoustical vs. electronic) cannot be validly inferred from the inherent REPEATABILITY of types of music PERFORMANCES. This is the essence of my reply to the your question. As to your question, first raised by Cbw, about how an audiophile might judge how his system “alters the source material”: First, I believe Cbw was teasing me in good fun by asking that question, because I tried to “sign off” during my last post after contributing at great length, and his question essentially starts the whole conversation over from the beginning, which is funny in a Myth-of-Sisyphus kind of way. Second, I proposed a way for the audiophile to judge how his system “alters the source material” in my original post. That’s what we’ve been talking about this whole time! Perhaps you are asking: How is the audiophile to judge how his system differs from the real events it represents? That is a good question. Perhaps someday, when I recover from this thread, I will create a thread entitled, “How do you judge your system’s transparency?” Because that is essentially the question you are asking. My current answer is: I don’t know. |
Hi Bryon - just saw your most recent post. Very interesting. My initial thought, after reading it twice and thinking about it, is that I am not so sure that you don't have your points 5a and 5b (and therefore the following 6a and 6b) backwards. If I may give two examples - first of a real event, as I understand your terms. This could be me playing my horn on a concert hall stage. A virtual event could be someone creating an electronic tone on a synthesizer in a recording studio. Now what is interesting to me about these examples is that the first one would be almost impossible to recreate EXACTLY. Sure, I can play the same note twice and it will sound exactly the same to all but the very most discerning listeners. However, chances are that it isn't actually exactly the same. Whereas in my virtual event example, anyone anywhere using the same synthesizer could theoretically EXACTLY reproduce that sound. This is the biggest advantage of electronic instruments. So it seems to me that this reverses what you state - objectivism would be more appropriate to the second, virtual example than the first, real example. Now I realize you are speaking of recordings, not live events, but if the standard for recording is to reproduce the live event as closely as possible, it is clearly much easier to come close to the "truth" of my second example on a recording than my first, as I understand your use of the term. In the first example, it would be almost impossible to determine, as Cbw asks, how much your system is altering the source material (let alone how the recording altered the live event), whereas with my second example, this would be easier to determine. What do you think? Am I misinterpreting your terms? |
ultimately, i think most of us do not listen to music in an analytic mode and are more concerned whether the sound reaching the ears is pleasurable. in that sense, musicality may be more important to most audiophiles. |
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Like Bryon, I took the red one. But that blue one can be oh-so-seductive at times, especially with those recordings that are just a bit overproduced. |
Nice concluding post. It does, however, raise the question of the accessibility of the truth. For instance, how do I know what is the musical event and what is my system? So now I have to come up with a way of determining how much, and in what way, my playback system alters the source material. Any thoughts on that? :) |
Bryon, your constructs are interesting, and in conclusion testament that "what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." Heisenberg |
I'm sufficiently out of it that I didn't get Shadorne's clever comment, especially in the light of references earlier in this thread to an unrelated type of blue pill. But a few seconds with Google and this Wikipedia article clarified it for me. Bryon, thank you for an uncommonly thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating thread, which in my opinion is brought to a neat conclusion in your last post. Best regards, -- Al |
Interesting. Did you take the blue pill or the red one? |
