Running Speaker Wire in Cavity Walls

(That's OK)

Digital does add and remove quite a bit, CDs are not as good as DVD audio. But for 99.9% of the population CDs are better than the scratched old records they had to play on their crappy decks. I don't really have a preference as long as it isn't MP3 which gives me a headache (really!).

This is true but studios don't use anything as low as CD quality these days AFAIK.

Reply to
dennis
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The reason for that is that CD (was) optimised as a final user product. If you wish to manipulate the signal as you would in a recording studio - equalise, compress, etc etc, higher resolution is desirable. But this applied even more in analogue days if you tried to do the same to an off tape analogue signal. You simply couldn't satisfactorily. Hence when using multi-track analogue tape many of these things would have to be done during track laying. You couldn't just record 'flat' then sort things out afterwards.

Of course CD is ancient in the climate of today's fast developing technology. It would be very different if setting the parameters now -due to data reduction algorithms that simply didn't exist then. But it was conceived as a totally transparent end user medium and still produces that result. Many don't realise that it's the input (source) to the medium which they don't like rather than the medium itself. The amount of processing applied to near everything these days destroys any attempt of realism.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Remember their name?

cheers, clive

Reply to
Clive George

There were many he claimed were converted. Were you one, then?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Just wondering if Andre Jute was the man in question - he's appeared in a cycling group.

cheers, clive

Reply to
Clive George

last.

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

This may explain why I think my old CDs sound better than the new ones ;-)

Reply to
Mark

I'd wager he hasn't. "Audiophiles" in general show a marked reluctance to submit to double blind testing when challenged to do so.

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

Excellent!

Not spotted that.

Reply to
Bob Mannix
8<

They are similar to faith healers in that respect. ;-)

Reply to
dennis

It always was the easiest thing to achieve with everythig except the loudspeakers.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Lower distortin and lack of mechanical feedback always gives that effect.

YOu like moderate third harmonic distortion and poor output impedance for its 'warmth' and mild bas resonances and don't like reproduction of the ultrasonic IM stuff that a good transistor amp always reveals in the poort recordings.

I gues you also like the 3rd harmonic distortion, poor high treble, and bas reonnaces you get out of a moving coil pickup as well.

Yes, but its way further from te 'original sound'

Odd, since thats what the CD's are cut from..

Yup. No one really wants the closest approach to the original sound at all. It sounds clinical and flat to them.

Not on your kit you wont. You have to learn what really low distortion flat spectrum stuff sounds like. Then you end up hearing the MUSIC not the EQUIPMENT.

The thing is you have never obviously heard really top class kit. You now what? it all sounds exactly the same!

Its below te threshold where it makes any difference to you. If one amp sounds better than another, then probably BOTH are DEEPLY flawed.

You are merely picking the flaws that sound better to you.

Rina bass organ passage through transmission line speakers and they sound GREAT. Now play reggae, its AWFUL. You need IB or reflex to get a proper attack to the notes. Play choral music on a really low distortion set of HF horns and you can hear the individual voices. Play a close miked violin through em and it sounds hard and edgy..you trade distortion for resonances..neither is perfect, not a dome tweeter nor a horn, so you can tell.

You are.

Its obvously been a grteat source of solace to you and a great source of profit to those who sell you high priced rubbish with a set of flaws that suit the style of music you favour.

Ive been in that business from the wires to the orchestras, from the marshall valve amp to the kings college choir. From a 9x6 elliptical in a cardboard box, to Quad eletrostatics, and to £10k plus sets of studio monitors.

The electronics, we can make so perfect you cant hear he difference. The wires - make em big and fat and forget em. CDs are, if the kit is done riht, 100 times better than anything else.

Pickups, mikes, turntables, loudspeakers, recording studios, tapes and engineers who use them are *ultra* far from perfect. You pick the one that sounds best. In the end a recording is not the original sound by a huge margin.

My wife's ears have the frequency response of a bass unit with the mid and hi units knocked out.

Every ones ears follow a non linear response to music volume. If you replay at a different volume to the 'original sound' you wont hear the same spectral shape at all. I built a loudness control once that really did follow the Fletcher Munson curves almost exactly over a 60dB range. Haha. The purists turn all the tone controls off. I fall about laughing.

I don't mind you saying that you prefer certain flaws to others. So indeed do I.

I do mind you proclaiming those flaws as The One True Sound, or telling people that they are stupid if they don't like the same sort of recording played via the same kit, or that wire types make a ha'poth of difference beyond the intrinsic resistance.

You just listen to this stuff. I've played it, recorded it, built the whole bloody lot, tested it, blind tested it, had hifi gurus breathing down my neck, and finally got sick to death of it. Now I just listen to the music, and thankfully forget about the whole food chain that goes before it gets to me.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

HEAR HEAR!!

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Eh? Dead easy. Now kick drums...

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Absolutely. All 'pop' stuff goes through 'mastering' where they take the perfectly respectable studio master and generally f*ok it up in the quest for loudness. Recent much publicized was the Bob Dylan. But he put it down to 'digital'.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

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