How Science Got Sound Wrong

I proved the article wrong in my first few posts. The article is based on a gross technical inaccuracy.

It seems to me that the central point of the article posted initially is more about the processing of sound by the brain-body in a real phenomenological experience versus the reconstruction of sound in an artificial way trough different mediums, be it digital, or analog like, or a mixed of the 2, with headphones or speakers...


But the redactor of the article seized the occasion where an artist(Neil Young) was criticizing the reduction of live musical event, to reconstructed one, be it analog or digital reconstruction, or a mix of the 2...For sure the preference of many for analog/ vinyl versus digital reconstruction has obscured the main point...Like in this thread for example where the main point was lost by crowds defending vinyl versus digital reconstruction or the reverse... And some engineer happily pointing to "errors" in digital reconstruction interpretation by the author, like somebody pointing a tree instead of the forest...Even if the criticism is right,( and I dont doubt at all that it is possibly right), that does not suppress the main point of this author, it is marginal...It is important to not throwing the baby with the bath waters ...


If we want to understand this article we must really understand first that hearing in a real world event is not equals to a reconstructed perception at this actual moment in the history with the technology available to a normal customer now...The author of the article otherwise speak at the end of a possible revolution coming in technology more akin to the natural hearing-body experience....The main point of the article is precisely that: the hearing body real event versus an artificial reconstructed event, of limited extent quality like with headphones or less limited like with speakers,will be always artificial then adding some destructive effects if compared to a real life hearing-body experience...But the author think about a future incoming revolution in the reconstruction of sound that will best mirror the real hearing-body lived experience...Then the author is not against technology "per se", but his goal was pointing to some limitations and difference...It seems to me interesting point...My best to all...


That was my 2 cents after reading this article and after reading this thread but I apologize in advance if someone can prove to me that my understanding of this article intent is totally wrong.... 
My goal in this post is expressing the idea that the starting point of the article, that is a controversy (Neil Young opinion), not only is an occasion and a pretext that is allowing to present his main point by the author in some manner but it is also a possibility to obscure this same point ( the debate/ discussion here illustrate that)… Main point : the difference between hearing-body lived experience and some technological reconstruction and their negative impact and limitations at this moment , be it analog or digital or a mixed of the two...

geoffkait

... it’s very hard to find a CD system that is better than the average vinyl system ...

I don’t know whether that’s true or not. It certainly wasn’t true when CD first debuted. It was the proliferation of cheap turntables and tonearms that helped fuel the rise of the CD. When users found a medium with no pops and clicks, no feedback, no skips, no risk of damage to fragile styli, they jumped right in. For them, the CD was a huge, genuine step forward. Many of those with better turntable systems heard the CD’s deficiencies immediately and were more cautious.

The whole LP/digital debate is really a silly one today. If you build a fairly neutral system around neutral speakers and amplifiers, and you then use any of today’s better analog and digital equipment, the qualities of LP and CD are remarkably similar.

There are a few noisy advocates on either end of the CD and LP preference spectrum that would have you believe one is substantially superior to the other. They’re both wrong.

If I were starting an audio system today from a completely blank sheet of paper, I’d frankly never get into LP. It’s just too much of a nuisance. But I acquired many LPs in the pre-digital era and - because their master tapes have degraded over time - even the best digital transfer of these albums pale compared to a good LP copy. (The Mercury Living Presence recordings are a good example of that.)

Oddly, the highest quality pressings of many releases today are often the LP, because the CDs tend to be more compressed.

It’s not very difficult to find a vinyl system that’s better than the average CD system. But it’s very hard to find a CD system that is better than the average vinyl system. Of course, if you can stand the blandness and boredom of CDs you’re one up on me.

mapman

Lots has been done to squeeze the most possible out of that inherently old technology since resulting in very expensive players ...

Quite so!

Way more people have access to very accurate sound these days, more accurate than most anyone would ever need, than ever for very modest cost.

Agreed!

Thank you science and technology!

Right - science and technology have made these improvements possible in both analog and digital formats.

Records were a very good innovation for delivering sound as accurately as possible with the technology available in the 1950s, almost 70 years ago.

Lots has been done to squeeze the most possible out of that inherently old technology since resulting in very expensive players that go to great ends to manage the faults and inaccuracies inherent in the system. Meanwhile quality of vinyl records continues to vary widely as it always has, but cost more than ever.

Regarding accuracy, modern digital streaming is leaps and bounds beyond that. Way more people have access to very accurate sound these days, more accurate than most anyone would ever need, than ever for very modest cost.

What sounds best to each individual is still as always up in the air, what sounds good to someone is not the same as what is accurate.

Thank you science and technology!

I think sounds are like words not only some external social communicating tools... Animals communicate... Sounds and words are together programming technology of the highest order between the brain-body and the growing self...

They program through the use of the body-brain the consciousness itself, unbeknownst to the "conscious ego" of the children or the adult who listen or speak the words or the music....It is for this reason that I distinguish ego or self and brain...If not we are in the muddy waters of ignorance, be it even enlighten by some ocean of technological information or not ...


But words and sounds are like nuts that people perceived ready made by the tree like only an end result ( be it the brain-tree or the engineered system-tree) without seeing the potential complex growing of the seeds inside...

atdavid

... So basically Cleeds you have no point at all?

Hey, atdavid , read up just a few posts and you'll find this:

... your assertion that LP isn’t "accurate" doesn’t withstand scrutiny ...

That was my point. You can't really defend the claim, so instead you defend yourself against arguments that you invent, and then claim I made.  Have a nice day.

I think that the point is not Digital versus Vinyl "per se"...
It is only that "the hearing brain" has his own distinguishing criteria for being "happy" that does not exactly superpose themselves with the actual frontier that separate the complex and mixed analog/digital links line in audio engineering...

In a word when somebody listen to music, his ego is listening, but his brain also, and they are not exactly the same entity or reducible to the samething… Just a 2 cent remark....

That explain why some brainless twit can enjoy trash sound from a trash source, digital or vinyl, but unbeknownst to him , his brain not so much... If we understand that perhaps we can go deeper in the analysis...

If not, there is only a trivial but very "informed" superficial but very technical debate indeed, instead of the search for a truth bigger than our own opinions...My other 2 cents... My best to all...

So basically Cleeds you have no point at all? Thank you for clarifying that.

atdavid673 posts12-07-2019 10:17am

Oh Cleeds you totally crack me up. You 100% believe that every specification w.r.t. turntables and vinyl 100% correlates to our understanding of human hearing but you will jump through logical hoops and distort math, physics and reality in an attempt to claim digital cannot achieve the level of detail or accuracy of vinyl sort ...

Oh no, I've never claimed that "digital cannot achieve the level of detail or accuracy of vinyl." Ever. Anywhere. That's just another silly "argument" that you are trying to advance because, it appears, you enjoy arguing for its own sake.

Oh Cleeds you totally crack me up. You 100% believe that every specification w.r.t. turntables and vinyl 100% correlates to our understanding of human hearing but you will jump through logical hoops and distort math, physics and reality in an attempt to claim digital cannot achieve the level of detail or accuracy of vinyl sort of like how this article does.


You want to pick and choose the experiments and scientific knowledge w.r.t. human hearing and signals that suit your desired outcome and ignore the ones that don't. That is charming but disingenuous.


You pretty much admitted you have no valid technical reason to prefer vinyl over digital. Thank You

atdavid

This notion that we cannot measure electrical signals with enough detail to match human human is false.

I haven’t made that claim here, so this is just a red herring.

.... if you like the way that a turntable and the whole vinyl process modifies what started as an electrical signal in a measurable way, there is nothing wrong with that.

Golly, thanks for your permission.

Just don’t call it accurate, as it is not.

That we can measure limitations in LP playback doesn’t support your claim that the performance is not accurate. W&F, for example, can be well below the level of audibility. There’s no need for it to perform any better than that. LP can achieve S/N levels in excess of what is required by the music. There’s no need for it to perform any better than that. Sure, CD can achieve S/N ratios that are tens of dBs better. But so what? That can have value on the production side of things, but not on playback. (As an exercise, have you ever measured the S/N level in your listening room? The results might surprise you!)

Perhaps the one area where LP specs look really deficient is channel separation. But in the real world, there’s really no such thing as 90dB channel separation - music doesn't happen that way in real space. Again, the LP can achieve channel separation that exceeds the need.

So your assertion that LP isn’t "accurate" doesn’t withstand scrutiny - nor is it consistent with actual results when a fine recording is properly played back - because an audio component needn’t be perfect to be "accurate." Your "argument" looks at the numbers without correlating them to the real world. That you can’t understand this is a consequence of your bias, and that’s the nature of measurementalism: Your preoccupation with numbers introduces a bias so profound you can’t even recognize it.

Of course, lots of LPs sound awful. But that’s a separate issue entirely.

Objectivity is a collective construction through language that educate the individual spirit in the collective game name : culture...


Subjectivity is the other side of the same coin: it is a collective construction through language also...


The distinction between the interior and the exterior of the consciousness is also some creation that is relative and agreed upon collectively by some higher form of consciousness...Then reality cannot ultimately be an hallucination, because it is objectively agreed upon and the result of a collective participation in the phenomenon...An hallucination " per se" is purely specific to one consciousness disconnected from the collective participation for a moment...

Quantum sciences does not teach that we are figment of some arbitrary imagination, but teach us that all phenomenon are ultimately linked to one another and with the consciousness...Then Q. science teach us that reality is a creative imagination yes, but in no way an arbitrary imagination with no depth, a non-sense...(My favorite interpretation of Q. M. is from Roger Penrose...And my favorite description of the genesis of consciousness in the physical world is also from Roger Penrose).


Each part of cultural activity is an expression of this collective construction through language, be it science or religion or poetry...

Language is way more profound instrument that people think … Language is a programming brain-body technology that linked all human consciousness … Language is used in communication by animals... But for humans, language is more than just external communication, it is a way to begins to be humanlike in the same matrix of constructed significations ...Studying linguistic the right way is very rewarding...On par with mathematics for illumination of the understanding...

Poetry is like number theory, most people cannot fathom these level of depth of signification, they takes numbers and metaphors like already made nuts without knowing the growing kernel...


I think I am a bit too serious :) Dont takes my words....investigate yourself...


Now I must really apologize to many of you and shut my mouth....

If we want to talk about reality, all of reality is subjective and can be no other way. Objectivity is an agreed upon subset of a purely subjective reality. Objectivity is a thought device. A fiction.

We are figments of our non existent imaginations, is what the quantum sciences say. And everything is quantum, when we get down to it.

Reality is a hallucination

A phenomenological experience (like hearing a sound or seeing a rainbow) cannot be reduced to measurements of any number, now and for eternity...


Measurements help  to design something, be it a theory or an apparatus, an invention  and are necessary for that...I dont understand how measurements alone can explain anything at all...It takes some new concepts if we want to understand something, amd way more than new concepts, it takes the living phenomenological experience also...


I dont say and will not say anything about vinyl or digital audio , for me they are always different, or better said, always existing in an embedding context in specific implementation and they are of different nature and complementary... 

Saying that, I cannot accept that by measuring something with some limited  actual theory, we can deny not only this radical difference, but also the phenomenological experience that is lived by each one of us differently...

 It is evidence that digitalization is necessary and useful, and that vinyl and analog process are also necessary and of some different nature for their effects...I know that no one contest that also... But the frontier and limits that differentiate these 2 process in audio engineering is not perfectly always clear for all of us user and even designer...And it is the same thing for their effect in the human hearing  brain... I apologize for my rant...I like perhaps too much speaking...:)

And I shall hereby dub you "DetachmentFromRealityist".  If you want to use childish names, lets go all in.

This notion that we cannot measure electrical signals with enough detail to match human human is false. It is not a supportable position. To that end, if you like the way that a turntable and the whole vinyl process modifies what started as an electrical signal in a measurable way, there is nothing wrong with that. Just don't call it accurate, as it is not.

cleeds2,611 posts12-06-2019 5:18pmI understand that you really believe that. It’s your measurementalist bias on display to the extent that even when it’s explained to you, you can’t see it. That’s ok; that’s how profound bias sometimes works. No one should interpret it as offensive.

atdavid

I never made an anti-LP argument ...

I understand that you really believe that. It’s your measurementalist bias on display to the extent that even when it’s explained to you, you can’t see it. That’s ok; that’s how profound bias sometimes works. No one should interpret it as offensive.

I just pointed out the many ways that LPs are not and cannot be accurate ...

Exactly! Have a nice day.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but calling names just shows your bias (and is a bit childish).

I have heard great turntables. I have heard great turntables sound great. I have heard great turntables "stumble" ... or maybe it was the pressing?  I have heard them "color" the sound.  That is completely okay. Some people's favourite color is blue. Some people's favourite color is red. No matter how much anyone screams, blue light will be shorter wavelength that red.


I never made an anti-LP argument, I just pointed out the many ways that LPs are not and cannot be accurate. I do that when someone claims technical superiority of vinyl. If you want to say it sounds better to you, I have no issues with that. There is a cross-section of the population that prefer the sound.  If you want to claim it has technical merits it does not possess, then I am going to call that out. That is not being biased, that is being honest.


I listen to a lot of live music, both amplified and not. I like live music, warts and all. I like music recorded in a studio too, which is most. I don't find vinyl brings me any closer to some "live" nirvana.  I am not oblivious to vinyl mixes often being better, but I don't say that is because of "vinyl", it is because of mixing.

cleeds2,610 posts12-06-2019 9:18amIt’s clear where you’re coming from - you’re a measurmentalist. You are so absorbed and infatuated with numbers and graphs that should you listen to even an extraordinarily outstanding turntable system, your profound confirmation bias would prevent you from enjoying the sound. For you, LP will always be a pig.

That’s a fine preference to have, by the way, and you have a lot of good company! But I’m glad that I can enjoy music from a variety of sources.

Your anti-LP argument is filled with illogic, btw, but no matter. A preference is just that - it doesn’t require any elaborate explanation to justify it.

Moops you’re always funny, I don’t care what anybody says. You’re almost ready for standup.

atdavid,

You should apologize for being so knowledgeable and taking the time sharing it with others here. Some people seem to find it offensive. Maybe even scary. Or maybe just jealousy. 
Try humoring them by saying something nice about expensive fuses. 
Or just stick to your guns and que sera sera.  

atdavid, you’re being much too modest. 

atdavid

You can spend all the money and the world and ... the channel separation will still suck as it is inherent in the implementation, you will never have de-equalization perfect since you don’t know the exact equalization curve, you can’t fix wow/flutter that occurred at cutting, and your dynamic range and signal to noise will still be comparatively low ....You can paint a pig all you want, but it is still a pig.

It’s clear where you’re coming from - you’re a measurmentalist. You are so absorbed and infatuated with numbers and graphs that should you listen to even an extraordinarily outstanding turntable system, your profound confirmation bias would prevent you from enjoying the sound. For you, LP will always be a pig.

That’s a fine preference to have, by the way, and you have a lot of good company! But I’m glad that I can enjoy music from a variety of sources.

Your anti-LP argument is filled with illogic, btw, but no matter. A preference is just that - it doesn’t require any elaborate explanation to justify it.

It is a burden.

But that is only because you know everything and no one else understands.

For you, two bits!  I thought it was pretty self explanatory though.

>>>>>>Is there any compensation for translating that paragraph?

ruraltraumasurgeon
These arguments are mostly specious, as was the original article that was referenced. Most neurons exhibit graded spikes - few exhibit fixed amplitude. An optimal example is three-dimensional auditory space in the mesencephalon which contains "incidence detector neurons." Also - human listeners compensate for a range of auditory incongruities - we are not digital as has been suggested. The medial orbitofrontal cortex is the site in the human brain where the highest level of auditory processing occurs, including compensation.

>>>>>>Is there any compensation for translating that paragraph?

Unless the compression takes into account equal loudness contours to target a more idealized playback at typical volume levels. The dynamic range database does not consider spectrum.

geoffkait18,721 posts12-05-2019 5:00pmThere is no advantage to overly compressing dynamic range during remastering other than being able to increase level on the CD.

Lack of dynamic range automatically makes the music $hitty. The good gnus 🐃 🐃 🐃 is most systems don’t have an excess of dynamic range anyway.

"You can control the loudness with the volume knob. But there’s nothing you can do about dynamic range."

So, what is it? Loudness War or Dynamic Range War?

Lack of dynamic range automatically makes the music $hitty.

Nonsense. Sometimes dynamic range manipulation is the only way to capture it to the media.

You can’t handle the truth. 

Thus spoke  Debbie Downer. 

You can control the loudness with the volume knob. But there’s nothing you can do about dynamic range. It is what it is. By the way, it’s not a trade off. There is no advantage to overly compressing dynamic range during remastering other than being able to increase level on the CD. It’s for the iPod and iPhone generation. You know, the folks who buy most of this stuff. Hel-loo!

Lack of dynamic range automatically makes the music $hitty. The good gnus 🐃 🐃 🐃 is most systems don’t have an excess of dynamic range anyway.

dynamic range database

might as well have beats/minute, tracks, musicians, keys, note range, etc.

Dynamic range does not help sh.tty music.

Agree the dynamic range dB may well be quite accurate overall and is a useful reference  but the measurements there alone are not a reliable guide to quality recordings. 

It looks like it’s you and the teeny boppers, glubson. That sounds about right.

For whatever it is worth, nudged by geoffkait, I checked that dynamic range database. I found it practically useless. Maybe numbers are correct but some "loudness wars" recordings sound just fine and some "wide dynamic range" are annoying.

These arguments are mostly specious, as was the original article that was referenced. Most neurons exhibit graded spikes - few exhibit fixed amplitude.  An optimal example is three-dimensional auditory space in the mesencephalon which contains "incidence detector neurons." Also - human listeners compensate for a range of auditory incongruities - we are not digital as has been suggested. The medial orbitofrontal cortex is the site in the human brain where the highest level of auditory processing occurs, including compensation.   

Loudness wars make it harder to listen to a recording loud without distortion.
Most people don’t care of their loud music is distorted and never have. 
But audiophiles do. High end systems used to just have to handle short bursts of loudness known as dynamic peaks. Now many recordings are similarly loud pretty much throughout. Amplifiers must deliver continuous power and often current to do the job right... it’s no longer just periodic dynamic peaks. Speakers have to toughen up to to play louder more without compressing.
So you can see how loud recordings raise the bar when it comes to ability to deliver accurate reproduction with minimal distortion which is what good sound is largely about.
Now whether these recordings sound good or not reproduced properly is still a matter of preference but I will argue the system has to be able to play the game before one can properly assess how the recording sounds.

I’d assert many of these these loud recordings are inherently god awful. Whereas many others are quite good, played well.
Pretty much like all recordings in general.
However, low quality, low power amps driving inefficient speakers more than ever need not even apply.

For the math challenged:
billions = billions and billions = billions and billions and billions
just as
6 = 3 + 3 = 2 + 2 + 2

Hmmmm, that is open to discussion, Is it the math or linguistic issue?

6=3+3=2+2+2, but

billions + billions ≠ billions + billions + billions

There are billions more.

For the math challenged:
billions = billions and billions = billions and billions and billions
    just as
6 = 3 + 3 = 2 + 2 + 2

cleeds: NO AMOUNT OF MONEY will avoid the LP’s host of artifacts. Disk playback can be very good, but it will never fool anyone that it is the master analog tape/digital file. Each step in the process degrades the sonics. Mastering, plating, mothering, stamping along with vinyl formulation each leave their greasy thumbprint. CDs and other digital media are not immune either. We choose our colorations just as we choose our wine, women and song.

PS Audio has a good series of articles on LP manufacturing in the Copper Magazine series Revolutions per Minute in Issue 90-98. https://www.psaudio.com/copper-magazine/

Unfortunately, he wasn’t smart enough to realize sending Dr. Ellie Arroway into a black hole in order to get her to Vega in his book Contact was a one-way ticket to oblivion. Fortunately, Kip Thorne of LIGO fame convinced him to change the mode of travel to a worm hole.

You are welcome.

You are literally dead nuts on about literally, can't believe I missed that little detail....

Wow.....billions and billions and billions ....that is really really big....truth be known when I first heard about those billions and billions, I thought come on get out of town, but the dude looked smart so I took him at his word.

But now you tell me its even more billions...that dude obviously didn’t know what he was talking about. Thanks for getting that truth out there.

atdavid

. Apparently there are people in this world who find vinyls lack of dynamic range, destruction of channel separation, equalization/de-equalization oddities, low SNR, and a host of other artifacts enjoyable.

That may be true, but it would apply to only a tiny minority. Audiophiles who play LPs work hard and often spend considerable money to avoid these "host of artifacts" that you reference. The notion that those qualities are what attract people to LP is silly.

And btw for those keeping score....the quote was...

literally billions and billions

Like what happened to literally, and where did the extra billions come from

"literally" was there. It stayed in your quote when I copied it.

The remainder of billions were added to make up for your inaccurate statement it was only billions and billions. It, in fact, was billions and billions and billions.

Interestingly they are files to see this loudness war with some examples on Wikipedia...I learn that today....

atdavid660 posts12-05-2019 11:06amYou are referring to something that some people actual like ... whether we do or not.

>>>>I assume you mean teeny boppers, I.e., someone who doesn’t know the difference.

Mahlman
It’s aggressivedynamic range compression I’m referring to. You know, the suffocation of the music. 🥵
OK how do you reverse such a thing, if it can be done? Have you tried Audacity? For my purposes it does seem to make things better most of the time.

>>>>>I don’t think it can be reversed. The best thing would be to stop doing it. But since they probably won’t stop it - it’s actually gotten much worse - I obtain CDs issued prior to the start of the Loudness Wars, mid-late 1990s. I also consult the Dynamic Range Database if I’m debating buying a more recent issue.