How do you want your treble roll-off served?

[fas42]

6 hours ago, gmgraves said:

You can't hear the distortion on the strings? The thickness when the sound field gets complex?, The flat sound-stage? I think we're starting to get a handle on our old friend Frank.

OTOH, the "Finlandia" on that recording is by far the finest performance of that lovely work on record.  Too bad the same can't be said about the recording. I've been trying to understand what they're singing for more than 50 years. I have never been able to get much past "On great Lone Hills..."

 

The handle has always been - irrespective of how the recording was made, how 'defective' it is, because of the recording technology, how the media was stored, how many generations down it is, how it was mastered, etc, etc, etc ... if the playback rig is doing its job as well as is possible, then all those defects go away, subjectively - and what shines through is the music, the sense of the event. I have had classical recordings from the library with appalling technical quality, infinitely worse than anything on that Ormandy release - and enjoyed the journey, .

 

As someone whose primary concern is enjoyment of the music, not endless fiddling with the gear for the sake of doing the latter, I value connecting with what has been recorded - if the playback irritates me, for any reason, then it's lost me - so that's what I work on: removing all the "irritating" factors.

 

If you always want to listen to something as a technical exercise, as apparently you do, then we're certainly in different worlds - I want to be carried away by the thrust and energy of the presentation; not scratching my scalp as I work out every tiny dip in the FR ...

[Ralf11]

primary concern is endless posting on fiddling with the gear for the sake of nothing

[fas42]

8 hours ago, gmgraves said:

You can't hear the distortion on the strings? The thickness when the sound field gets complex?, The flat sound-stage? I think we're starting to get a handle on our old friend Frank.

OTOH, the "Finlandia" on that recording is by far the finest performance of that lovely work on record. 

 

Okay, how about we nail something precisely ... give an exact time interval in a YouTube clip of that performance where you hear the worst "distortion on the strings" -- no "the whole clip!" retort, but a short time segment, where we can discuss what's going on.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

primary concern is endless posting on fiddling with the gear for the sake of nothing

 

For the sake of nothing? IOW, most audiophiles have no interest in improving their SQ, unless it's done by endless rounds of purchasing, or adding fashionable gizmos to their setup, hmmm ... ?

[Ralf11]

right, nobody else ever does any DIY on here - just you

[fas42]

The crucial point is, You have to keep doing the DIY until the SQ reaches the levels I speak of - if you falter, or give up part way through the exercise, or decide that something is not relevant, then it's highly likely that it will never happen. Peter is an excellent example of someone who understands the process, and knows that more can be achieved if he continues to burrow into the subtleties of everything.

 

The only thing different about what I do, is that I know - in the inner sense of, "knowing" - that these results are always possible if one persists - which is part of my message.

[tmtomh]

@fas42 and @gmgraves, first off, thank you for bringing me to that Philly Orch performance of Finlandia. I'm not a classical music expert and I'd never heard it - what a wonderful performance! (And I live in Philly, so it has extra resonance for me.)

 

That said, I think it's an overstatement to call the performance "unlistenable," but gmg is absolutely correct about the distortion on the strings - for example from about 16:30 to 17:15 (approximately) in the YouTube clip. gm also is correct that recording lacks air, and it presents a relatively small soundstage and somewhat closed-in feeling.

 

I do agree with Frank that it's still an engaging performance - the strings and congestion at 16:30 did unfortunately prove unpleasant and distracting to me, but on the whole I find the entire thing a joy to listen to and easily to get immersed in for long stretches. But the notion that the distortion perceptually disappears is, in my view a poor way for Frank to try to describe the fact that we can listen and enjoy this piece despite the distortion. Insofar as Frank uses this claim in support of an argument that system tweaking can "subjectively overcome" the limitations of the recording - and to argue further that harsh treble is a result of one's system and not the recording - then I would go farther and say that Frank's argument also is a bit misleading and self-serving.

 

Don't get me wrong - some systems, including expensive/audiophile ones, are indeed harsh-sounding and too trebly. But on my modest but IMHO well-balanced system, I don't hear treble harshness on the Finlandia track. I hear distortion, congestion, and a lack of air - but the frequency balance sounds fine and perceptually I feel like I'm hearing "into" the recording - the opacity I hear comes from the recording itself (and/or from the LP playback/capture system the YT uploader used, and YT's lossy compression).

 

So no, my interconnects are not soldered on, and no, I don't have homemade dampening material stuck inside my components. And for that matter, I don't have a -7dB or whatever EQ curve applied to my system. And yet somehow my system, while modest and certainly not without its faults, sounds consistently balanced, open, transparent, neutral, and not at all harsh to me, with all kinds of music played at a variety of volumes. (And just to be clear, Frank, this last paragraph should in no way be mistaken for an invitation to have you tell me other tweaking methods/aspects I should try.)

[Hugo9000]

Here is part of my favorite recording by Ormandy/Philadelphia, with Philippe Entremont on piano:

 

 

[sandyk]

40 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

That said, I think it's an overstatement to call the performance "unlistenable," but gmg is absolutely correct about the distortion on the strings - for example from about 16:30 to 17:15 (approximately) in the YouTube clip. gm also is correct that recording lacks air, and it presents a relatively small soundstage and somewhat closed-in feeling.

 

How do you know that much of that isn't due to too low a  bit rate .aac encoding and compression?

 If you DL it directly the best you can hope for is 187Kilobits audio. (15KHZ MAX. too, IIRC)

Direct play from YouTube isn't even as good as that either.

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

The handle has always been - irrespective of how the recording was made, how 'defective' it is, because of the recording technology, how the media was stored, how many generations down it is, how it was mastered, etc, etc, etc ... if the playback rig is doing its job as well as is possible, then all those defects go away, subjectively - and what shines through is the music, the sense of the event. I have had classical recordings from the library with appalling technical quality, infinitely worse than anything on that Ormandy release - and enjoyed the journey, .

 

Of all the absolutely unfathomably dumb remarks you've made over your more than 3100 posts to this forum, the above is probably the most ill-informed, and asinine assertion you've ever made! You are simply wrong. How you ever heard the term, "garbage-in, garbage out"? If you start with source material that sounds bad, nothing you can do after that fact will have the slightest affect on the bad sound. It's like trying sharpen an out-of-focus photograph. You can use the sharpest projection lenses, the very best optics, yet, the best you can do is a very sharp out-of-focus photograph. I don't see how you can't know that. Well, yes I can, but the implications aren't nice, and I'll refrain from mentioning them. I'm sure everybody else reading this knows what I mean....

 

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

As someone whose primary concern is enjoyment of the music, not endless fiddling with the gear for the sake of doing the latter, I value connecting with what has been recorded - if the playback irritates me, for any reason, then it's lost me - so that's what I work on: removing all the "irritating" factors.

 

If you always want to listen to something as a technical exercise, as apparently you do, then we're certainly in different worlds - I want to be carried away by the thrust and energy of the presentation; not scratching my scalp as I work out every tiny dip in the FR ...

Most of us cannot enjoy music that is so mangled on the recording end, that it is simply not listenable in a relaxing sort of way. Such distortion causes listening fatigue which leads to irritability, which is the opposite of relaxing. And if one can't relax and let the music carry them away, what's the use? Of course, a lot of this has to do with expectations. I expect any recording made in the 1950's on to sound decent simply because the technology has existed since then to make any commercial recording sound decent. That many don't is simply unforgivable and there is no excuse for it. Of course, if one is listening to some piece of music recorded in the 1930s or 1940's and it's the only way to hear that music, then, of course, one lowers one's expectations. They simply couldn't do any better. 

 

But much of what you spout here is such unmitigated bull-pucky, That I wonder that you can write much of what you do with a straight face - I sure can't read it with one!

[tmtomh]

Just now, sandyk said:

 

How do you know that much of that isn't due to too low a  bit rate .aac encoding and compression?

 If you DL it directly the best you can hope for is 187Kilobits audio.

Direct play from YouTube isn't even as good as that either.

 

I agree with you that YouTube's compression - which, alas, typically is 124kbps and not even 187-191kbps - makes this stuff sound worse. And I would also request that you re-read my full comment, because I do mention the role of YT compression elsewhere in my comment. So I do agree with you on the general issue of YT audio compression.

 

However, if you have listened to that particular video, and you seriously think that the obviously analogue distortion and overload in the section in question is not due to the original recording and/or the condition of the LP and/or overload in the mic used to capture the video, but rather is due to YT compression, then we're going to have to agree to disagree, to put it mildly.

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

Okay, how about we nail something precisely ... give an exact time interval in a YouTube clip of that performance where you hear the worst "distortion on the strings" -- no "the whole clip!" retort, but a short time segment, where we can discuss what's going on.

Just Listen Frank! I have those works on SACD, and I can tell you that the source of the distortion is very apparent. It's not just electronic distortion that I'm talking about, Frank, it's distortion of perspective, distortion of the sound field , distortion of localization it's phase anomalies caused by multi-miking, it's altogether fatiguing to listen too, and nothing that anyone, even you, can do on the playback end with your soldered wires, junk speakers and mid-fi electronics to eliminate those problems. 

[gmgraves]

21 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

How do you know that much of that isn't due to too low a  bit rate .aac encoding and compression?

 If you DL it directly the best you can hope for is 187Kilobits audio. (15KHZ MAX. too, IIRC)

Direct play from YouTube isn't even as good as that either.

Well I know because I have both the original LP and the SACD from Sony in the early 2000s, and a later Redbook re-release. They all sound pretty much the same. I've done enough recording to know the symptoms of gross overproduction and early solid state sound. 

 

You are right about the 15 KHz top end. No recording studio could maintain their tape recorders beyond 15 KHz, for a number of reasons. Reasons that compounded themselves with the addition of more and more tracks to record and playback heads.

[Allan F]

11 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Just Listen Frank! I have those works on SACD, and I can tell you that the source of the distortion is very apparent. It's not just electronic distortion that I'm talking about, Frank, it's distortion of perspective, distortion of the sound field , distortion of localization it's phase anomalies caused by multi-miking, it's altogether fatiguing to listen too, and nothing that anyone, even you, can do on the playback end with your soldered wires, junk speakers and mid-fi electronics to eliminate those problems. 

 

Picky, picky, picky!

[gmgraves]

20 minutes ago, Hugo9000 said:

Here is part of my favorite recording by Ormandy/Philadelphia, with Philippe Entremont on piano:

 

 

I have this album and I agree that it is a magnificence performance. Unfortunately, it suffers from mid 60's  "Columbia-itis" and that's a shame because some of the finest performances from some of the best performers were all-captured during that technically incompetent era.  Ormandy, Walter, Szell, all did some of their best work during those years, and to have it compromised like that is, in my opinion almost criminal. Then we have the Mercury's. Fennell, Lane, Dorati, etc., were not the superstars that these Columbia artists and orchestras were, but there stuff is still sought after by audiophiles and music lovers alike because these recordings were simply made by someone who not only knew how to record a symphony orchestra, but was able to use his limited technical facilities to best result (hell, perhaps it was because of his limited technical facilities) to make recordings that still sound GREAT!

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

The crucial point is, You have to keep doing the DIY until the SQ reaches the levels I speak of - if you falter, or give up part way through the exercise, or decide that something is not relevant, then it's highly likely that it will never happen. Peter is an excellent example of someone who understands the process, and knows that more can be achieved if he continues to burrow into the subtleties of everything.

 

The only thing different about what I do, is that I know - in the inner sense of, "knowing" - that these results are always possible if one persists - which is part of my message.

It's all of your shopworn and tiresome message, not "part of it"!

[sandyk]

27 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Well I know because I have both the original LP and the SACD from Sony in the early 2000s, and a later Redbook re-release. They all sound pretty much the same. I've done enough recording to know the symptoms of gross overproduction and early solid state sound. 

You are doing early solid state sound an injustice !

 This recording is bloody awful. (at least the YouTube version is)

 The attached is the YouTube audio converted to 16/44.1 LPCM. At least there is no clipping evident in the recording.

 

[sandyk]

44 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

 

I agree with you that YouTube's compression - which, alas, typically is 124kbps and not even 187-191kbps - makes this stuff sound worse. And I would also request that you re-read my full comment, because I do mention the role of YT compression elsewhere in my comment. So I do agree with you on the general issue of YT audio compression.

 

However, if you have listened to that particular video, and you seriously think that the obviously analogue distortion and overload in the section in question is not due to the original recording and/or the condition of the LP and/or overload in the mic used to capture the video, but rather is due to YT compression, then we're going to have to agree to disagree, to put it mildly.

 I am not saying that. I am simply saying that to judge a recording properly, you need something way better than  YouTube which hobbles the audio so that the record companies don't have too worry about losing sales due to people saving the YouTube versions instead of buying them.

[tmtomh]

17 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 I am not saying that. I am simply saying that to judge a recording properly, you need something way better than  YouTube which hobbles the audio so that the record companies don't have too worry about losing sales due to people saving the YouTube versions instead of buying them.

 

Again, Alex, I agree with what you say here, as a general proposition - and I agree specifically that the lossy quality of YT videos, along with the fact that there's no easy built-in way to download them, is at the best of rights-holders.

 

But within that general point, it's nevertheless obvious that the specific issue @gmgraves, @fas42 and I were discussing clearly has nothing to do with YT audio compression. So for the second time, I am agreeing with the points you are making, but also respectfully insisting on keeping the context and point of my original comment in view. Please don't threadcrap. Thank you.

[sandyk]

7 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

Please don't threadcrap. Thank you.

 

You left yourself wide open to this when you made this  uncalled for comment.

 

 

Quote

So no, my interconnects are not soldered on, and no, I don't have homemade dampening material stuck inside my components. And for that matter, I don't have a -7dB or whatever EQ curve applied to my system. And yet somehow my system, while modest and certainly not without its faults, sounds consistently balanced, open, transparent, neutral, and not at all harsh to me, with all kinds of music played at a variety of volumes. (And just to be clear, Frank, this last paragraph should in no way be mistaken for an invitation to have you tell me other tweaking methods/aspects I should try.)

 

[tmtomh]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

 

You left yourself wide open to this when you made this  uncalled for comment.

 

 

 

I know that coming to consensus instead of just trying to win an argument isn't really your thing, Alex, but you know full well that the comment you quoted was a direct response to the argument the other two were having, and anyone here can read the relevant comments for themselves and see the connection. Is there no way we can see our way clear to being content with the fact that we agree about the negative effects of lossy YT audio compression and then just calling it a day beyond that?

[sandyk]

15 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

I know that coming to consensus instead of just trying to win an argument isn't really your thing, Alex, but you know full well that the comment you quoted was a direct response to the argument the other two were having, and anyone here can read the relevant comments for themselves and see the connection. Is there no way we can see our way clear to being content with the fact that we agree about the negative effects of lossy YT audio compression and then just calling it a day beyond that?

 I had intended to leave it at that, until you put the sting in the end of your reply.

Quote

. Please don't threadcrap. Thank you.

 

Neither do I appreciate the way you started this reply to me.

 It's not exactly the best way to get the desired cooperation from someone else is it ?

 

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Ok... has anyone tried to reproduce actual concert halls FR ? To summarise :

 

feed a flat signal in a concert hall and you'll get a downward slope (#1db/octave slope is preferred) at Listening Position (quoted Finnish studies). That opens this thread and means DON T BE AFRAID, there's solid ground to eQ.

 

Play a bunch of listeners a bunch of samples of actual CDs on loudspeakers and they will prefer when those loudspeakers are tuned to yield a 1dB/octave downward  slope (albeit without the brisk attenuation above 5K displayed by all measured large concert halls) at LP when fed a flat signal. (quoted Harman studies)

 

Other industry leaders such as B&K have produced recommendations in the same line for years so you have good chances your favorite music has been mastered with something resembling a 1dB/octave downward  slope although I can't rule out that some morons eQ flat their monitors or with any kind of tortuous curves.

 

Here is computeraudiophile : trying is donation free with REW and RePhase + I think some free players are capable of convolution.

 

I invite those who haven't to try and report if they're happier when listening to music and how that cheap solution fares vs cables etc etc

 

 

 

[gmgraves]

13 hours ago, sandyk said:

You are doing early solid state sound an injustice !

 This recording is bloody awful. (at least the YouTube version is)

 The attached is the YouTube audio converted to 16/44.1 LPCM. At least there is no clipping evident in the recording.

 

You think so? You're joshing, right? I mean early transistor amplifiers, whether the power kind or those found in mixing consoles, suffered from slew rates of less than 1 volt /microsecond, huge amounts of negative feedback causing a concomitant high amount of TIM. Plus, the effects are cumulative. Each microphone channel added it's problems to the whole and then there is the accumulated noise and distortion of each tape recorder channel. FAS42 notwithstanding, recordings made with that process are the worst in stereo history. As much as I love some of the performances (EO/PO; Copland's Lincoln Portrait, Adlai Stevenson, narrating) They are really difficult to listen to (for me anyway).

[sandyk]

6 hours ago, gmgraves said:

You think so? You're joshing, right? I mean early transistor amplifiers, whether the power kind or those found in mixing consoles, suffered from slew rates of less than 1 volt /microsecond, huge amounts of negative feedback causing a concomitant high amount of TIM. Plus, the effects are cumulative. Each microphone channel added it's problems to the whole and then there is the accumulated noise and distortion of each tape recorder channel. FAS42 notwithstanding, recordings made with that process are the worst in stereo history. As much as I love some of the performances (EO/PO; Copland's Lincoln Portrait, Adlai Stevenson, narrating) They are really difficult to listen to (for me anyway).

 

Yes, I well remember the sound of a 741 vs. a decompensated 748 etc. where with the sound of air conditioning the 741 made it sound like a dull roar, and how crappy your typical 6V6GT output stage with 10% distortion in many radios sounded .

Yet there were many very good recordings that rival those of today, many of which have severe limiting and compression etc.

 I seriously doubt that too many studios raced in and replaced their mixers with crappy 741 stages ! 

There are many very good sounding albums from artists such as Julie London from those early days.

Have a good  look at the attached photo of a Julie London album. Many of Julie's recordings were from the 1956-1957 era and later remastered in 2006.

Incidentally, the original recording of Peggy Lee- Fever from May 19, 1958 sounds fabulous, or at least it did BEFORE the additional mixing.

(I have a copy of this track from before the additional mixing )