More > Media Center 11 (Development Ended)
Audio 101, a primer -a very long post!
gkerber:
A lot of good information, and quite a bit of opinon.
modelmaker:
gkerber: I did mention at the biginning that these were some of my thoughts and info to promote discussion (and hopefully the sharing of information). The opinions are based on my experiences and are worth what you paid for them. What are yours?
nameless:
I value opinion very much, so long as it is presented as such (rather than as fact), and as long as it is worded well enough for me to understand and decide if it makes sense to me, and thus if I agree with it.
gkerber:
--- Quote ---gkerber: I did mention at the biginning that these were some of my thoughts and info to promote discussion (and hopefully the sharing of information). The opinions are based on my experiences and are worth what you paid for them. What are yours?
--- End quote ---
I was reading this post when I saw that we both have icons of something walking, but we're walking in opposite directions.... that got me laughing....
I consider myself a pragmatic sort of audiophile, or at least I used to be an audophile in my younger days. I knew all the technical stuff when I sold audio equipment in the late seventies ( still keep up pretty well with the technology). And I also found that all the great sounding stuff in the glossy literature from the manufacturers was mostly techno mumbo jumbo - listening was the best way to know what was "best"
(to the person). I guess I belong more to the Julian Hirch school of audiophile over the "Stereophile" philophosy.
When you say you like the sound of lp's better than cd's, I take that to mean you like the sound of the particular cartridge and the mix of the lp over the neutral playback of the cd and the mix of the cd. Like speakers, cartridges imposed quite a bit of color to the audio (not AS much), whereas cd players have much less effect on the over all sound as cartridges did. Your statement that lp's sound better due to the wider frequency response while maybe "sound" in theory, requires that the cartridge have a frequence response beyond 20k and at a meaningful "flat" level compared to the 20-20k response. Very few had response much higher than 20k (excluding the RCA quad cartridges - was it CD4?) and it was many db down from the level at 18-20k. And does the amp reproduce those frequencies and the speakers? No they don't, not at meaningful levels. In the final analysis, all devices, active or inactive impart some color to the music, and an A/B test between lp's and cartridges have very many other factors included as part of the test, change cartriges and your opinion about which sound better to you may change.
--- Quote --- Rock music generally tends to overpower it''s envirronment, lliteraly and therefore can live in a wider range of home environments.
--- End quote ---
This statement is too general. Rock music is created, not played (like pure acoustic music), so there is no generally accepted "accurate" sound quality for it. But I think "overpower" is the wrong word entirerly and demeaning to the genre.
--- Quote --- Older audiophiles will be rolling their eyes as they remember the top of the line Bose 901 which fired eight 4" drivers to the rear and 1-4" driver in the front. In order to get full range sound tho you had to use their equalizer which to the purist added an additional device and inherent noise and distortion to the signal path.
--- End quote ---
The 901's sure did have thier own sound (which I didn't like) and that equalizer sure was inefficient in the earlier generations.... But we had customers that swore by them, loved them and therefore, they were the best speakers for them.
I just wanted to point out that some of what you were saying was opinion while other parts were black and white clear facts. Not that your opinions were good or bad, but that they were opinions.
I see you're from Lake George, New York. I grew up in Clifton Park, NY. I have so many great memories of Lake George, boating and camping. The last time I was there was in the mid-90's while doing "time" in NJ for my job (AT&T) for a few years.
I remember growing up and 'hating' the people from NJ coming up and taking "our" campsites (I was young and wrong), so it was very funny to me that when I lived in NJ for a few years in the mid-ninties, that I came up to Lake George and took some our "their" campsites. I'm in Denver Colorado now.
Bartabedian:
Some extended info:
Most humans would be lucky if they could hear above 18Khz or below 50hz. Women are more likely to hear over 20k, conversely men more likely to hear below 40.
The human body resonates at certain frequencies based on height, weight, density of bone/tissue and muscle vs fat ratios. The exact frequency for each human is completely based on the individual, and it is called a "resonate frequency". This is not limited to humans as all objects around us have their own unique resonate frequency. This all greatly affects our listening experience, as does temperature, humidity, elevation, etc.
Secondly, in my 25 plus years in audio engineering spanning thousands, even tens of thousands of sessions, I have never once heard a pop, click or crackle in my recordings (or at least not unintentional noises). I never heard a vinyl reproduction and thought "gee, I guess they wanted that sibilance, that rumble, that rice crispy symphony marring their hours, days, weeks, months of work."
True, harmonic frequencies abound on analog repro's where digital falls short. But trade-offs exist, perfection is futile and todays recording environment has tools and toys to help "control" the end result, the listening experience. Do 96k recordings offer us that much closer to analog? Yes, the idea being that more sampling "points" creates more harmonic detail, but it will always be a digital repro, simulating the real, and will never be able to capture a full spectrum of analog quality.
And then the question is raised, if humans can barely hear a frequency at 20k, how can we truly understand the difference between 44.1 and 96k? It's not really audible as much "feeling", and I can tell the difference on my Meyer HD1's but on my desktop setup through my JBL control 1's, hardly. It's there, and as a professional I should proudly proclaim "I hear it", but I don't.
In the end, my advice to the listener is, does it sound good to you? Are you enjoying yourself? I can tell you this, that's what most of the musicians who record the music you listen to care about.
WP
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