2. misc-audio
  3. 1375840071

Does it bother you?

I'm a recording engineer who has worked in some of the world's top facilities. Let me walk you though an example signal path that you might find in a place like, say, Henson Studio A:

1. Microphone: Old. Probably a PCB inside. Copper wiring.
2. Mic cable: Constructed in house with $1/ft Canare Star Quad, solder, and a connector that might have been in the bottom of a box in the back.
3. Wall jack: Just a regular old Neutrik XLR connector on the wall.
4. Cable snake: Bundles of mic cables going to the control room.
5. Another XLR jack.
6. Another cheap mic cable.
7. Mic preamp: Old and lovely sounding. Audio going through 50 year old pots.
8. Patchbay: Another cheap copper cable is soldered into a patchbay where hundreds of connectors practically touch.
9. TT Cable: Goes from one patch to the next in the patch bay. Copper. No brand preference.
10. DB25 connector: Yes, the same connector you used to connect a modem to your computer in 1986. This is the heart and soul of studio audio transfer.
11. DB25 cable to the console: 25 strands of razor-thin copper wire, 8 channels of audio, sharing a ride.
12. The mixing console: PCB after PCB of tiny copper paths carry the audio through countless op amp chips.
13. DB25 cable to the recording device: time to travel through two more DB25 connectors as we make our way to the AD converters or tape machine.
14. AD conversion: More op amp chips.
15. Digital cable: nothing fancy, just whatever works. USB and Firewire cables are just stock.

...and this is just getting the audio into the recorder.

Also:

None of this equipment has vibration reducing rubber feet, it's just stacked haphazardly in racks. Touching.

No fancy power cables are used, just regular ol' IEC cables.

Acoustic treatment is done using scientific measurements.

Words like "soundstage" and "pace" are never uttered.

Does it bother you? Do you find it strange that the people who record the music that you listen to aren't interested in "tweaks," and expensive cables, and alarm clocks with a sticker on them? If we're not using any of this stuff to record the albums, then what are you hearing when you do use it?
trentpancakes
jjrenman
279 posts
 
But it still doesn't explain how audiophile listeners only seem to find extreme positives when they listen to traditional studio recordings on expensive stereos.

How do you come to this statement. The bulk of recordings that have "extreme positives" are a small minority. I'd say that far less than 10% of my collection is audiophile quality recordings, with the bulk coming from small specialty labels that are obsessed with sound quality.

The rest of the recordings have lots of issues but I don't post about how my system lets me hear the issues.

In fact there are far to many recordings that are so bad I can only listen to them as backround music.
csontos
1,311 posts
 
Trent, you're the one that doesn't get it. We're on the playback side, you're on the recording side. Regardless of what you've done, we're just doing our best to capture it, whether good or bad. It's our best attempt at recreating a real performance. It's all we can blindly do. We are at your mercy. Those trying to 'improve' it are the ones who are out to lunch.
glenfihi
525 posts
 
Spent many years doing audio in television, so much of what you state is right on point. Which is why I myself am very dubious when it comes to tweaks and special items concerning audio.
timrhu
2,779 posts
 

Spent many years doing audio in television, so much of what you state is right on point. Which is why I myself am very dubious when it comes to tweaks and special items concerning audio.
Glenfihi

Same here. Plus, I'm a natural born skeptic.
Look at my system and you won't see any strange tweaks. Still. I do enjoy the conversation here.
jjrenman
279 posts
 
Look at my system and you won't see any strange tweaks.

This is getting laughable. Your system is full of technology that was originally tweaky. The most obvious are the speaker cables. Not all that long ago the question of wire making a sonic difference was hotly debated between those who are the technically inclined non believers and those who are the proof is in the pudding so give it a try folks.
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