cleeds, "No, what you’re arguing for isn’t an auditory test, although that’s a common misnomer. Auditory tests are conducted by audiologists." If going for minutia of names, I think you are talking about audiometric testing. It happens that it is also an auditory testing just like anything that involves listening/hearing is auditory. For example, auditory hallucinations. |
I cannot see how epistemology would have anything to do with showing, or not showing, if there is a certain effect on the sound by whatever. It is completely different genre, so to speak. Its topic has nothing to do with "is it here, or is it not here". It is not apples and oranges. It is veterinary reproductive science explaining that the span of the chain bridge over the big river is just right for windy day walks. |
Bias, or not, what was the result of perception of Guarneri vs. Stradivari? Forget about newer models. |
"Here’s a simple truth about bias and placebo effect: Neither will cure cancer. No blind test is needed to prove that." That is a bit too profound for Sunday morning. |
"Not every opinion is the result of bias." I'd go with that, but carefully. Now, when one involves word "Stradivari" in the non-biased equation about violins, I would be double careful. |
Wasn't that test about how audience hears it and not how the player feels while playing it? In any case, we can say there is too many variables and avoid going into the abyss of what is right.
Violins are slowly getting extinct and music these days depends on integrated circuits, resistors, and other things in similar direction rather than on a craftsman trying to surpass Guarneri. Same goes for the piano stores. Dwindling and dwindling for a reason. As sad as all of that may be. Once upon a time, harpsichord was a big thing, too. |
Can we continue with logical fallacies and slide into Barbara and her boys? I am quite good at them. It may not be for an audio website, but so aren't logical fallacies either.
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"...I spent so much time in them that my wife swore I was seeing another woman." We feel sorry for your lost opportunity. |
"Reading electronical measuring dials cannot replace the human ears perception of timbre...." If true today, give it a few more years. It is amazing how good some of the programs have become. |
If I may add to this semantic debate. Acoustic means it is related to sound/hearing. Nothing more elaborate or precise than that.
Having said that, most of us take "acoustic" guitar as the piece of wood (or whatever that material is) with strings over it and a few more necessary parts and without any electricity involved. Of course, some concerts have even that "acoustic" guitar associated with a microphone.
If you check virtually any concert involving guitars, you will see multiple instruments swapped throughout the performance. They were picked for some reason and even two "acoustic" guitars will not sound quite the same. Now, it is on you to figure out which one is the more real one. |
"...I expect to hear what Miles Davis intended for me to hear, not what the recording engineer thinks it should sound like." There is a chance that Miles Davis was involved in that process to some extent. There are many pictures of musicians sitting next to engineers in front of the console. |
frogman,
Of course, the ideal would be comparing live performance of non-amplified music with whatever we have at home. I was mentioning rock'n'roll because it seems to me that most of the members here (Audiogon, not necessarily only this thread) lean towards electrified performances.
At some point, I recorded a piano. As simple as simple gets, no fancy recording equipment, technique, or conditions. Portable MiniDisc with a microphone (around $70-100, I forgot details) in the room. It was surprising how close that recording actually came to the live piano on a relatively, for Audiogon, modest system. Maybe the secret was that both were in the same room, much smaller than any venue one usually listens to piano at. Our regular recordings are, as millercarbon pointed out, processed to resemble what many people along the way wanted them to resemble. Not always the faithful recreation of the event. Recordings bear some room imprint and attempting to recreate that in a living room may make things more complicated. |
"No system sounds exactly like live music and none ever will; but some get surprisingly close." Do not forget that some (most?) of the current live music/events are also playing through the electronic system. When listening to, let’s say, rock’n’roll and trying to have it sound like a live event, you are really trying to match that electronics/venue combination. Having said that, there has not been much live music to compare our systems with lately. |
