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Surrealist View Drop Down

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Posted: October 16 2012 at 15:02

moshkito

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the reason I am going after Dean here is that he is not acknowledging the fact that a proper analog set up trumps a digital one. For us that know.. it is very real.. and there may be readers here that might take the low road and swallow Dean's digital blue pill and miss out on the tremendous difference and experience that a quality analog rig can bring to PROGRESSIVE ROCK which is the subject of this thread. Is analog important to progressive rock? The answer is YES..
no pun intended really.

I'm sure people respect Dean here. and I have no doubt that he has great knowledge of a good DIGITAL rig.. but from what I have read from him.. he does NOT have good knowledge on how to set up a proper analog rig.. which is what is going to really bring PROGRESSIVE ROCK to the ears of those who really want to get into the experience at a much deeper level.

This classics of this genre were recorded during the golden age of vinyl and tape machines.. and this technology is still alive and well today.. but is constantly being bashed by the inaccurate interpretations of the digital process. What people really need is a bit of common sense.

For one.. a sample cannot be better no even equal to the source input. If the feed is coming off vinyl or magnetic tape, or original masters.. it CANNOT be equal or better.

A proper tube amp is MUCH more efficient than any solid state amp will ever be. Dean states he favors reliability of his NAD.. but it is not BETTER.. than a good tube amp. In fact it is not even close. I have owned NAD stuff... and it is good solid state gear.. but it's not even in the ballpark with a good tube amp. Suggesting it is... and using a bunch of scientific mumbo jumbo to support the claim is nothing more than him trying to justify his position without using something much more accurate... his ears.

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Posted: October 16 2012 at 15:17

The bottom line is...

people who have good analog rigs know the superiority.. and people that don't think analog sucks.

You can't know what you don't know. and you can't hear what you can't hear. I know people go crazy over this stuff.. and people over at audiogon.com often spend $6000 on a pair of speaker wires.

The guy who taught me this stuff said it pretty eloquently.

"Mate, you can spend $2500 and get 97% of the way there.. and you can then spend $100,000 to get that last 3%"

I don't have a $1000 cartridge or use a monoblock set up.. or have a pair of $10K speakers. But I sure can't imagine going back to a Dual TT with a Pickering or Stanton cartridge or NAD or running through JVC speakers or Cerwin Vega.

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Posted: October 16 2012 at 16:19

Going a bit off topic, with regard to equipment, the integrated amp I use now is a NAD. It is not a vintage one, I opted for the new C356BEE model. I auditioned many, many amps 2yrs ago, including several tube amps like Cary, McIntosh (horridly expensive for what u get), Classe, Ayre, Naim and Rega......None were as musical, powerful and detailed as the NAD C356BEE......Especially the reproduction I heard with vinyl, none compared to the NAD performance. Digitally the Rega Brio-R with the Rega DAC was superb, but the reported hum issues are widely noted on the net and I heard it in audition.

Cary tube amp came close to getting my money but the cost of tube rolling an amp with 10 tubes was approaching $500 for a set was not for me......not right now.

The NAD for me gave me all I was looking for, the Power Drive technology makes the amp sound like a 120wpc amp at times when I crank it...very clean sound....Its really a beast of an amp and it loves progressive rock as well as jazz, which dominate my listening patterns.

And it mates very, very well with my Epos speakers to give me that "British" sound I like, rather than the "American" high volume, loud everything up front sound. Plus the Epos are 4ohm and I prefer that over 8ohm, the NAD drives them easily and runs very cool.

The Phonomena II phono preamp is a good mate also, next month I will be auditioning the Jasmine LP2.0 class A phonostage with J-FET transistors, suppose to be very quiet, low noise.

Anyhow, I like my NAD amp and I know Dean likes his.......Some things just always sound great!

Rock on!!

presdoug

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Posted: October 16 2012 at 16:40

as moshkito was intimating, you guys need to chill, and relax and listen to some music!

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Posted: October 16 2012 at 17:20

presdoug wrote:

as moshkito was intimating, you guys need to chill, and relax and listen to some music!

I have been doing that for more than 30 yrs.....I'm good!

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Posted: October 16 2012 at 18:56

Surrealist wrote:

I have not been espousing the superiority of Digital music in any of my posts

Bull crap Dean... Time to call you out mate.

Some nice quote-mining here, it's a shame you took the quotes out of context as that tends to alter the meaning, especially when my comments were responses to contentious comment you had made, I doubt whether anyone cares enough to be bothered by that so I'll try not to be bothered by it too (no promises though).

You have mixed up my responses to your comments on digital music with my responses to your comments on valve vs solid-state amplifiers and thrown in a random comment about the "science" used by audiophilia salesmen at trade-shows for good measure. I know these things are inexorably linked in your head, but they are not in mine so I have taken the time to separate them out so I can answer them separately.

Originally posted by analogue vs digital

analogue vs digital wrote:

Now in all the following quotes it seems to me that I am not allowed to point out the limitations of the analogue process without being accused of some heinous crime. I find that to be just a little disingenuous because it implies that analogue is perfect and we all know that it isn't - if it were then all turntables, cartridges and amplifiers would be the same and we'd have lot more money to spend on albums. By the same argument I am not saying that digital is perfect either because then all transports and DACs would be the same and they are not (however the uniformity of modern sigma-delta design is leveling the playing field somewhat).

Surrealist wrote:

The "problem" with analogue systems is there are too many conversion steps that can and do affect the sound:

Here you are bagging on analog systems. Calling you out mate.

Sorry, I didn't know the idiom bagging on so i had to look it up, it seems it means criticising. I was not criticising analogue systems there. You will note that I put the word problem in inverted-commas - that conventionally denotes irony, it means I wasn't being serious because for you the conversion of an analogue waveform into 16-bits digital data seemed to be a big problem, because this is your comment that I was responding to:

Surrealist wrote:

If you look at the physics of it.... a 16 bit rendering of an analog source input simply cannot compare to the original data that is being input into the computer or sampler.

The implication being that the analogue signal recovered from a vinyl groove can compare. Which I believe to be a fallacy and I then went on to show why I believe that.

Surrealist wrote:

In a digital system the electrical information from the microphone is converted to digital,and there the information remains in the digital domain until the ADC in the CD player converts it back to electrical and while it is in the digital domain it is completely immune from any external influences that can affect the sound - the sound you hear coming out of the CD player is identical to the sound the record producer heard in the studio - you cannot make that claim for analogue.

Your bashing analog set ups here.. calling you out. Stop talking out of both sides of your mouth.

I'm not bashing set-ups, you need to read that quote again.

What I have said is the pattern of 1s and 0s that the producer heard from the DAC in his digital mastering studio and then put onto the digital master tape is bit-for-bit identical to the pattern of 1s and 0s that the CD player reads off the CD. So when that pattern of 1s and 0s is fed into a DAC it produces the same analoue signal in both the studio and the home.

That is the nature of digital transfer of data - the words I have typed onto this page are a digitised as a pattern 1s and 0s and transmitted over the internet into your computer where they are converted back into the same words with no errors or distortions. This "A" left my keyboard as the first letter of the alphabet, travelled down some ancient copper-wire telephone lines to an exchange and then bounced around the British server network before being sent under the Atlantic through miles cable to some more servers in the Canada where it bounce around different switching networks into the PA server where it was stored until you called up the page and it was then transmitted through several more servers and telephone networks in Canada and the USA until arrived on your computer 6000 miles away from my house as the first letter of the alphabet. And it will forever be an "A" until someone deletes Max's database. That "A" does not become an "a" or a "B".

Now if you would make that same claim for a vinyl record then I would find that to be just a little bizarre - would you truely be saying that the conversion from electrical signal to vinyl grooves and then from vinyl grooves back to electrical signals is completely accurate without any change in the signal at all? That the analogue signal that the producer heard in the studio is exactly the same as the one you hear when you play the album off the vinyl record? Are you really saying that the vinyl cutting and subsequent vinyl/cartridge set-up imparts no effect on the sound what-so-ever?

Surrealist wrote:

The best SNR that can be recovered from vinyl also has a fundamental limitation

Here you go again with the limitations of vinyl. What about the limitations of sampling a sound wave. Just calling you out mate.

Does the word also mean nothing to you in that sentence? A sampled sound wave has a fundamental limitation in that the number of bits represents an SNR value that it is impossible to go below. I merely pointed out that vinyl also has a fundamental limitation of SNR that it is also impossible to go below. I'm at a loss to see how I can explain what the limitaiton of a sampled sound wave is without drawing a comparison to the same limitation in vinyl - it is not my fault that this limitation is worse for vinyl - it is not my fault that CD has an SNR of -96dB compared to -60dB for vinyl - I would wish it were the other way around, but I cannot make that happen - I'm stuck with working within the bounds of physics and material science.

Surrealist wrote:

you cannot zoom an analogue signal recovered from a vinyl recording to that same degree of "magnification" - all you see is noise.

It's not noise, it's detail. Stop being subjective. Mr Fripp will not like you calling his music noise. He made a career out of creating beautiful noise.

I think someone is being melodramatic.

I'm not being subjective, I am being factual. If you record a sound that has detail at -70dB relative to the largest value that sound can have then that is 10dB below the noise floor for vinyl and +26dB above the noise floor for digital. If you convert those decibels into an equivalent voltage-ratio then the inherent system noise coming off the vinyl will be 3 times bigger than the detail you are trying to see while off the CD the noise is 20 times smaller than the same detail. That is not a subjective statement - that is why you cannot zoom an analogue signal indefinitely. Yes if we zoom-in on a digital signal down to -90dB (which is an equivalent 'magnification' of 32,000) you will see the steps and you will see the noise -6dB below that, but if you used the same maginfication on the vinyl output all you will see is the noise. The detail will still be there but it will be swamped by the noise and you will neither see it nor hear it - sorry about that, it's not my fault.

Noise is an anathema to digital and analogue set-up, both are prone to it and both suffer from it. I wish I could make the inherent system noise coming off vinyl better than CD but I cannot - it's not my fault.

Robert Fripp wrote:

"Music is the cup that holds the wine of silence. Sound is that cup, but empty. Noise is that cup, but broken."

Does anyone know the context of that quote from Mr Fripp - I would love to know where it came from.

Surrealist wrote:

whatever is incomplete (ie missing) from sampled signals is also missing from vinyl reproduction

Except everything that was not sampled is still present on the vinyl. Even you know you are incorrect here. Your being silly.

I understand sampling theory and I know I am correct. I know when you look at a graphical representation of a digitised waveform you see discrete steps in the waveform and I know that looks like there is something missing, but there is not, there is something added - the original waveform is still there but there are now other signals superimposed on it.

You can prove this very easily like this - if you subtract the original waveform from that stepped waveform you would be left with just the steps and they are indeed nasty little things - nasty little sawtooth waves at very high frequency and very low amplitude - the frequency is centred around 44.1KHz (it's not exactly 44.1KHz but I'll come to that in a few paragraphs time) and the amplitude is equivalent to a few bits of the converter - which is where the -96dB SNR comes from - the amplitude is -96dB less than 0dB, or 32,768 times smaller.

However if we could replicate that nasty little sawtooth wave and then subtract that from the sampled stepped waveform then what we would be left with would be an exact replica of the original waveform. [if you do not fully appreciate that please take the time to understand it, it is very important] ... what I am saying here is this:

(horrible stepped wave) = (pretty analogue wave) + (nasty sawtooth)

so

(nasty sawtooth) = (horrible stepped wave) - (pretty analogue wave)

therefore

(pretty analogue wave) = (horrible stepped wave) - (nasty sawtooth).

Now let's see what that nasty sawtooth is made from. Let's convert a 1KHz analogue sine-wave to digital at 44.1Khz sampling frequency and we will analyse that using simple mathematics - for this we will need one of the trigonometric identities that we learnt in high-school called sum-to-product identities, such as this one:

${ \sin(2\pi f_1t)+\sin(2\pi f_2t) } = { 2\cos\left(2\pi\frac{f_1-f_2}{2}t\right)\sin\left(2\pi\frac{f_1+f_2}{2}t\right) }$

If f₁ is the sampling frequency and f₂ is our 1KHz analogue signal then adding the two together will result in four separate frequencies f₁, f₂, (f₁-f₂) and (f₁+f₂) all mixed together, which when we plug in the values we get 1KHz, 44.1KHz, 43.1KHz and 45.1KHz ... which is an approximation to our horrible stepped waveform (ie it is what you would see if you did a spectral analysis of the waveform).

As I explained earlier if we subtract the pretty analogue wave from that, what we are left with is the nasty little sawtooth, which when the 1KHz is removed would be composed of the three remaining frequencies 44.1KHz, 43.1KHz and 45.1KHz all of which are not only above the range of human hearing, they are also above the range of vinyl playback.

Now I said if we could replicate that nasty little sawtooth and subtract it from the horrible stepped waveform what we would be left with is the pretty analogue wave. Fortunately doing that is trivial - all we need to do is filter off all those frequencies that are greater than say 22.05KHz using a tried and tested low-pass filter. And that is exactly what we do.

So every-time you have said something is missing from the sampled waveform I have said no there isn't and that is the reason why - the 1KHz waveform was still there in the digitised sample, but the "gaps" were not missing information, they were extra information that we needed to filter off before we could feed the signal into our amplifiers and speakers.

I do hope that all makes sense, because I cannot make it any simpler to understand - I know it is a complete mind-flip that goes against the grain of everything you believed to be "fact" because it was for me too when I first encountered it at university.

Even if you didn't follow that please think before calling it silly again because it is a lot of things, but silly isn't one of them.

Surrealist wrote:

Vinyl offers no more detail than digital (it offers less)

More subjective nonsense... lies and opinion that is not factual.. nor can it be. Samples are samples. Just calling you out.

see above.

Again this is not a subjective statement, it is an objective statement. The increased dynamic range that digital technology offers to the audio enthusiast means more than just having louder loud passages and quieter quiet passages in a peice of music, it also means you can have more detail. Details are the small nuances in harmonics on a normal volume fundamental tone - if we removed the normal volume fundamental tone from that all we would be left with would be those small nuances, the details and they would be like the quieter quiet passage in a piece of music - the increased dynamic range that digital offers allows those nuances to be heard above the inherant system noise. If vinyl had the same dynamic range as CD then it would have the ability to offer more detail than it currently does.

This is counter-intuitive to you because the representations of sampled waveforms you see in graphs and diagrams have steps - and you think those steps miss the detail - I hope you can see now that they do not. If you cannot see this then you really do need to explain why you believe that in objective, factual scientific terms and not just "because I can hear it and anyone who cannot doesn't own the right equipment" - because that line of argument is not cutting it.

The word "lies" is a very emotive one and it comes from being told something you don't want to hear, this why I have not reacted to your use of that word here.

Originally posted by valve vs solid-state

valve vs solid-state wrote:

None of the following affects anything in the digital domain - whether I have the bestist valve amplifier in the whole world ever or the crappiest solid-state amp that satan himself designed doesn't alter any of the scientific explanation of analogue and digital systems or objective comparisons between digital and analogue.

Surrealist wrote:

valve amplifieres and their very necessary output transformers add distortion (in the voltage/current and the time/frequency domains) to the source signal - that is a fundamental limitation of the physics of their construction - that's not subjective or professional bias, it is a bankable fact

Here you are suggesting distortion is bad by labeling it a limitation. Calling you out mate. Stop acting like a politician.

Eh? How does a limitation equate to bad? Surely if you like and prefer the sound that produces then it's good isn't it?

I suspect there is nothing to be gained here by explaining how valves and impedence matching transformers work, if you are interested in valve amplifiers then knowing how they work can be advantageous so I would suggest reading a good book on the subject.

Surrealist wrote:

Selenium rectifiers are dreadful period - they degrade over time and are not good at all because as they degrade they affect the life of the valves in the amp. They are also toxic when they fail.

Again you continue to bash. Responsible tube owners change out the rectifiers every ten years and don't have problems. Stop with the subjective nonsense. They are a necessity in restoring vintage tube gear. Dreadful should not be in your scientific manual of jargon.

For the sake of authenticity I can see the logic in replacing selenium rectifiers in vintage equipment with new selenium rectifiers, how authentic a modern selenium rectifier is is not for me to decide or comment on - using vintage selenium rectifiers (if you can find them) can be a problem because they also have a limited storage life. If you want authenticity then that's fine, if you want to improve the lifetime of your valves and not want to open-up your amplifier periodically then silicon replacements are okay.

Saying they fail is not subjective, saying they vent toxic fumes when they fail is not subjective, saying they degrade is not subjective, saying the life of the valves they supply is affected as they degrade is not subjective. If someone decides to make a turntable using a plastic tone-arm or speaker interconnects out of wet-string then I think that having the word dreadful in my technical vocabulary is perfectly justified.

Surrealist wrote:

I've run my NAD amp continuously for 30 years (it only gets switched off when I move house), it is faultless and as good as it was when I first bought it - I cannot conceive a situation where I would ever sell it.

Subjectively preferring solid state nonsense. NAD solid state is no where near the efficiency of a proper tube amp. It takes way too much voltage to get sound out of the speakers.

This is not stating a preference for solid-state, it is simply a comment that I like my NAD. Please do not use words like "efficiency" without justifying it numerically because what you have written here does not make sense.

Could you also explain what an improper valve amplifier is.

Surrealist wrote:

I like the clarity and transparency of the NAD.

More subjective nonsense, nothing scientific here comparing solid state to vacuum tube amps.

That's good because I see nothing here comparing the NAD to anything.

Surrealist wrote:

Valve (tube) amplifiers distort - that is a given fact just as the air is 20.94% oxygen is a given fact.

Here you go again suggesting tube amps are distorting. Admit you don't like them Dean. Your being subjective again.

I'm not being subjective - read up on valve amplifier theory, this is something that we have known about since they were invented - varying the voltage on the grid does not produce a linear change in the anode current - since that nonlinearity results in harmonic changes in the output that were not present in the input. The harmonic differences between input and output is called harmonic distortion. In a good valve amplifier that will be around 1%, perhaps a little less, compared to less than 0.02% for a pretty average solid-state amplifier. Now I'm not claiming that THD is the be all and end all here because 10% THD looks dreadful on an osciloscope or analyser but it can sound pretty sweet when you hear it, which is why audiophists are dismissive of numbers and figures when discussing how their favourite amplifiers sound and I actually do not have a problem with that - if you like what you hear then the numbers are immaterial. BUT if you claim that a valve amplifier produces a perfect replication of the original sound source then you you haven't been dismissive of the THD figures, you are merely pretending they don't exist.

Originally posted by Dean does not like marketting hype dressed up as science

Dean does not like marketting hype dressed up as science wrote:

This one of those out of context quotes that means very little, but I see here it was just used to make a snide rejoinder that has all the impact of a sock full of marshmallow.

Surrealist wrote:

I think you'll find what you hear in those "science talks" is a million miles away from science

I think a lot of what you post here is a million miles away from science. Uriah Heep mate.

Prove it

Edited by Dean - October 16 2012 at 19:11

What?

Dean

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Posted: October 16 2012 at 19:37

Surrealist wrote:

moshkito View Drop Down

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I've never claimed any of this. I have never stated a preference for anything.

I'm being attacked because some components in one of my analogue set ups fails to meet some undefined standard?

What?

ProgShine

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Posted: October 16 2012 at 22:03

It's just like saying that technical music that carries 3 thousand notes and fast passages is better than a pop tune... nonsense put only number in music.

It all depends which remaster edition you have and what they have done or not with the album. For example, I had a Cassete recorded directly from a French edition of Trilogy by ELP that was FAR FAR better than my brazilian LP edition. Do I mind the format? If I can play it on my house of course not.

There's many CD editions that's just so fu*** up to make a few bucks with big names on music that you want your old LP back, and the same goes for LPs, there's many tha were terrible and new remasters saved them.

It's music, close your eyes and let youself go, if it bothers you, fix the sound, but not by numbers, by your ears.

Do I prefer vinil? No! So do I like CD better? No! So am I a digital boy? No! I'm a music lover, doesn't matter which format it's wrapped up Smile

https://progshinerecords.bandcamp.com

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Posted: October 16 2012 at 22:36

Dean,

If you were to hear sound that sounded better to you.. but then found out that it was coming from an analog source, and not digital.. would you try to explain that to yourself scientifically? Or would you retreat and say to yourself.. I must be being subjective here, because this cannot be because mathematically equations do not support my subjective leanings?

I was reading this scientists thoughts on building a listening room.. and he insisted that the room be completely dead with the walls covered with foam so there was zero reverberation, and this was the only way to get a proper true experience from the speakers.

On the other hand, the ancient Greeks believed in created a space for acoustic listening that was based upon a 3-2-1 ratio to create a room with ideal acoustics for both music and lectures. The walls where usually smooth stone surfaces.

Totally different views.

I despise dead rooms. I see zero logic in recording music in a large room that has been covered with sound deadening foam or similar absorbing material... then the sound engineer sending for a reverb effect unit. If you want a flat sound.. fine.. but I don't think that it is any coincidence that for ages, the idea of a sound hall or acoustic performing hall have been under construction for 1000's of years. You could argue that this colors the sound.. and is not pure or accurate.

I say all this because you constantly keep reverting back to the safety of your pseudoscience which is attempting to legitimize your positions.. while completely ignoring the intention which is to get your stereo system sounding good.

Your steadfast insistence that digital is more accurate is like saying a foam room is more accurate. But it is only accurate if people only spoke in foam rooms with no reverberation.... or people only listened to music dead flat with no colorization.

The digital to analog converters are a big problem.. because what they do is change sound waves into digits which is not how our bodies are designed to hear sound. This conversion, however accurate one might proclaim is simply unnatural to our ears and listening experience. People can tell the difference, and this is why you have a growing community of people that are understanding this.. if not only on an intuitive level.

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Posted: October 17 2012 at 11:24

Surrealist wrote:

The digital to analog converters are a big problem.. because what they do is change sound waves into digits which is not how our bodies are designed to hear sound.

If our bodies can hear the sound of a screeching high speed train, they can hear the sound of digitally recorded music, no problem. Oh wait, if they could hear performed music before the recording age.... Dead

It's a bit hard not to fall off the chair rolling with laughter at such a statement. Er, what on earth do you know about anybody's body other than self's?

In a nutshell, you are going round and round about what are really first world problems at the end of the day. I have heard music on third class tapes, on crappy walkmans, on very primitive television sets and enjoyed every bit of it; in fact this was how I listened to music in my formative years. You cannot tell me that a given medium makes listening to music impossible, which is how you are making it sound. Enjoy your vinyl collection and promote artists who want to make music purely on an analog platform, as you have professed to. It's not for you to preach what others should or shouldn't listen to. You said you came here to educate people about analog but you have to admit you have way overshot that brief by now.

Edited by rogerthat - October 17 2012 at 11:36

moshkito

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Posted: October 17 2012 at 11:50

Surrealist wrote:

...

I believe this is a falacy and not true anymore.

It would make folks like Trillion, IKT and many others that are taking the time and effort to record the accoustic instruments for anyone to be able to use the samples.

The quality of those recordings is far and above what they used to be and the discussion is meaningless!

Comparing the RCA Red Seal recordings (I have 3 of them) to anything that is being done today in digital, is bizarre ... they both have "different" qualitites, all of them being our own preferences ... and extremely SUBJECTIVE preferences at that.

It defeats the purpose of the recording ... to make something of the band that is NOT of them, and an issue for many bands that "made it" ... that end up concerned with their own sound, not being "them" on the stage. That will hurt most bands! Any process that does this, forces the band to change and get better, and some of them do not have the ability to do so, if they are not technologically, or academically inclined to even bother learning what this means ... some might say ... let's just play! and ignore the rest!

You are taking the discussion away from the musicians ... and that is not wise in my book! It's like taking the paint out of the painters ... fine ... I'll use a computer ... we have that answer now ... or take the instrument out of the player, and we will find another!

All in all, the "analog rig" was what was killing a lot of music, and was over priced and too expensive except 3 or 4 bands that could use Abbey Road. And Abbey Road was NOT, the best recorder of these because they did not have a good feel for "live" work ... and if you don't believe me, you need to see the Tom Dowd DVD ... you have no idea!

It's about the "moment" ... the music ... not the recording process ... which tends to distort things ... and yes, you like analog ... someone else likes digital ... and I don't care! However, if you read my review of Roger Water's The Wall, you will find one very nice comment about analog/digital ... that gets forgotten ... the sound in this new version was CLEAN ... there was no HISS ... and you could not say that for the old days!

Sorry ... warmth out the window because of too much hiss!

And a tube amp, is no longer more efficient than the digital amp, btw ... and if you read guitar magazine consistently, it is telling you all the time that the difference is dwindled down to nothing and almost negligeable these days, and tomorrow it will be even better.

Again, your discussion is stuck in time and a place and will get lost in the future!

...

I'm sure people respect Dean here. and I have no doubt that he has great knowledge of a good DIGITAL rig.. but from what I have read from him.. he does NOT have good knowledge on how to set up a proper analog rig.. which is what is going to really bring PROGRESSIVE ROCK to the ears of those who really want to get into the experience at a much deeper level.

I may disagree with Dean here and there, but the respect is a two way street, and Dean is no different than you or I.

His knowledge of the music and work in this board is above and beyond the call of duty ... he might not state it in this manner or that manner, but in this case, we're discussing HISTORY and it doesn't matter if your analog ideal lasted 5 minutes or 10 years ... it's GONE ... like the Model T's ... and we will be laughing about it 50 years from now!

Defending it as better 50 years later, or 100 years later ... is like saying that Beethoven and Tchaikovsky were better than Stravinsky 100 years later ... discussion is useless, other than the technical information which makes for really good work for someone doing a PHD study for useless information that is long gone, dead, in ashes!

Edited by moshkito - October 17 2012 at 12:24

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Posted: October 17 2012 at 12:39

... I'm sure people respect Dean here. and I have no doubt that he has great knowledge of a good DIGITAL rig.. but from what I have read from him.. he does NOT have good knowledge on how to set up a proper analog rig.. which is what is going to really bring PROGRESSIVE ROCK to the ears of those who really want to get into the experience at a much deeper level.

Not to mention that there is not a whole lot of musicians out there that even consider this equation when they play their notes on the instrument. Chris Squire might have, but he was more interested in making sure that his guitar had the pickups split so he could get a stereo effect by having one pickup do this and the other do something else ... if you tell me this can be done better analog, you're insane ... the digital rigs these days make this so invisible that you can't tell when the Edge is playing a straight chord, or Andy Summers ... in a well known song. Again ... see the shows!

There are very few musicians, that pay attention to eh analog/digital discussion ... they concentrate on their music ... and sometimes it looks like this and that and such ... but 40 years ago, analog was all there was ... but perhaps you did not hear Robert Fripp state that he was totally stunned when he heard what Steven Wilson did with his group's material ... which, again, tells you that some folks are aware of these things, but not all of them!

You can barely see past your own funnel to get your creation out ... you are cluttering the process by not concentrating on making your vision clearer and clearer ... again, it has less to do with digital/analog, than the clarity of the people involved!

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

moshkito

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Posted: October 17 2012 at 12:42

Hi,

Dean ... I think it's time to lock this thread ...

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

Dean

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Posted: October 17 2012 at 13:02

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that"

What?

Snow Dog

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Posted: October 17 2012 at 13:12

"Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do..."

Edited by Snow Dog - October 17 2012 at 13:14

Catcher10

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Posted: October 17 2012 at 15:03

moshkito wrote:

Hi,

Dean ... I think it's time to lock this thread ...

Why?.....Remove all the scientific/technological/specification stuff going on and its a good topic.

Surrealist View Drop Down

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Posted: October 17 2012 at 15:03

If opinions are not meant to be expressed, then why have such a forum?

This topic... The importance of analog sound in prog is the most important element facing prog today.

Is it any wonder that the world has yet to produce another great prog band since the beginning of the digital age that could compare to YES, GENESIS, GENTLE GIANT, RUSH, JETHRO TULL, LED ZEPPELIN, DEEP PURPLE, KING CRIMSON, ELP, PINK FLOYD etc...

The limitations imposed on the musicians by not being able to digitally manipulate every track both in performance and sonic nature required them to practice more.. and in the extra time practicing, it opened a wider creative window for both ideas and superior execution to flow more freely. They simply had to be better because the bar was raised much higher than the "fix it in the mix" generation of prog.

The digital age has enabled the listener to create a list of "singles" in their ipod rather than give the artist's complete work on vinyl a second or third or 20th listen by touching the needle to the groove. While this was done with cassette tapes.. it still came from the needle.

The invention of the drum machine did not help create better acoustic drummers. It killed off many of them. It was digital technology getting involved where it should not have. Sampled drums the same thing. Convenient but less expressive.

CD's shrunk the size of an album by 75% for convenience.. but also took the listener farther away from the artist's overall presentation including album art and other visual or graphic content.

Radio moved away from a personal DJ whom folks would tune into their show because they shared a similar taste and feel for music.. instead moved into music presentation based more on national statistical data that offered a more scientific approach toward targeting the mass conciousness.

The move away from audiophile into convenience pointed the artists to put less detail into their music and more punch do to lower fidelity digital offerings.

The continued pursuit of convenience over quality has been felt most in the more artistic musical genres including progressive rock.

In the 60's and 70's, the youth culture had enough articulation and thoughtfulness to embrace very complex music that mirrored their level of conciousness. If kids didn't have a good stereo system, they knew someone who did. Speakers were big and sound was more visceral and felt deeper into the body. Today's "head down" youth culture are looking for musical inspiration coming off low quality digital sound files streaming across the internet.

Is analog sound important to prog?

The answer is

YES

presdoug

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Posted: October 17 2012 at 15:08

"and yuu--- luk sweet---upon-th seet---ov a bycicle--- bult ---fr two"

Dean

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Posted: October 17 2012 at 15:20

Catcher10 wrote:

moshkito wrote:

Hi,

Dean ... I think it's time to lock this thread ...

Why?.....Remove all the scientific/technological/specification stuff going on and its a good topic.

It's a good topic with them, remove all the snide remarks and sniping and it would have remained one.

When the argument against one technology over another makes unsubstantiated claims about the technical aspects of those technologies then scientific explanation and specification is central to the debate.

What?

Dean

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Posted: October 17 2012 at 17:51

Surrealist wrote:

Dean,

If you were to hear sound that sounded better to you.. but then found out that it was coming from an analog source, and not digital.. would you try to explain that to yourself scientifically? Or would you retreat and say to yourself.. I must be being subjective here, because this cannot be because mathematically equations do not support my subjective leanings?

At no point in this thread have I ever said that one technology sounded better than another. At no time in this thread have I ever said that I prefer the sound of one technology more than another. I have never expressed what my preference is in any post in this thread. I have never said one or the other sounds good nor have I said that one or the other sounds bad. I have my opinion but I choose to keep it to myself - I don't need to shout-out to the world which sounds better to me, I don't need affirmation or approval of my personal preferences for the sound of one technology over another. Do I like it?.. that is all that matters to me (whatever that technology happens to be).

Now as an engineer I am interested in what differences exist in systems that people seem to like or dislike - that is a technical puzzle and I like investigating technical puzzles. When we solve those puzzles objectively it helps us design systems that people might like even better subjectively. And everybody will agree that must be "a good thing" will they not? I do hope so because that's exactly what audio system design engineers have been doing for the past 60 years or more.

So in answer to your question, yes - I would attempt to explain it scientifically because that is exactly what I have done in practically every post in this thread: when someone said they liked valve amplifiers because analogue sounds warmer I replied that is because the valves and their output transformers add harmonics that make it sound nice - I called that distortion because that is the technical terminology for it - you objected to that because in your bag of preconceptions and false assumptions distortion means bad. Never mind, I'm not going to cry over that.

Surrealist wrote:

I was reading this scientists thoughts on building a listening room.. and he insisted that the room be completely dead with the walls covered with foam so there was zero reverberation, and this was the only way to get a proper true experience from the speakers.

I suspect that scientist is either an idiot, not a scientist whose speciality is acoustics or audio engineering or you have misunderstood him. I've been in an anechoic chamber and it's a most unnerving experience, you really don't want to stay in one for very long and you certainly wouldn't enjoy listening to anything in one for more than a few minutes. They are used to make precision measurements on specific equipment in total isolation from all reflections and external interferences, such as when the plotting true cardioid pattern of a microphone for example.

Surrealist wrote:

On the other hand, the ancient Greeks believed in created a space for acoustic listening that was based upon a 3-2-1 ratio to create a room with ideal acoustics for both music and lectures. The walls where usually smooth stone surfaces.

I would beg to differ slightly here but only on the intent of the Greek architects - they were not after ideal acoustics, they were after acoustic amplification (and that is an even more remarkable achievement). They had no PA systems so they designed their theatres to amplify and project the sounds exactly like the parabolic horns in your horn speakers - this is why you can stand centre-stage in one of those theatres and be heard in every seat. This is the same acoustic engineering as the Whispering gallery in St Paul's cathedral London.

Surrealist wrote:

Totally different views.

I despise dead rooms. I see zero logic in recording music in a large room that has been covered with sound deadening foam or similar absorbing material... then the sound engineer sending for a reverb effect unit. If you want a flat sound.. fine.. but I don't think that it is any coincidence that for ages, the idea of a sound hall or acoustic performing hall have been under construction for 1000's of years. You could argue that this colors the sound.. and is not pure or accurate.

Back in the 70s I saw David Bowie at Earls Court in London and the sound was very unpleasant because Earls Court was not designed as a concert hall - it's a large exhibition hall with concrete walls and huge concrete pillars holding up the roof, everywhere there are sharp angles that create unwanted reflections - this disappointed me considerably, not because I was a Bowie fan (I wasn't - I had to take my kid sister who was a fan), but because I also had tickets for Pink Floyd at the same venue a few months later. I was dreading that because they were, and still are, my favourite band and I didn't relish hearing them in such a unpleasant sounding place. Fortunately Pink Floyd's sound crew knew their science and their sound-engineering because suspended from the ceiling all around the hall were huge baffle-boards and drapes to control the wild resonances and reflections of the concrete hall - and they worked to (near) perfection - the sound was bloody marvellous, as the newspaper reviews said at the time:

Of course you don't want an acoustically dead concert hall, but you don't want one that is uncontrolled. When they first built the Royal Albert Hall everyone agreed that it sounded awful because of the cylindrical shape - it took years to correct that, and if you see pictures of it now there are massive inverted mushroom baffles hanging from the ceiling to control those reflections and to bring the resonances back under control. All this is science.

Surrealist wrote:

I say all this because you constantly keep reverting back to the safety of your pseudoscience which is attempting to legitimize your positions.. while completely ignoring the intention which is to get your stereo system sounding good.

No I am not, but you do not understand the science I am using so you are disparaging of it (anyone who calls it mumbo-jumbo clearly doesn't understand it). There is no shame in not understanding, it's not an easy subject to understand or explain in lay terms.

Surrealist wrote:

Your steadfast insistence that digital is more accurate is like saying a foam room is more accurate. But it is only accurate if people only spoke in foam rooms with no reverberation.... or people only listened to music dead flat with no colorization.

Now I am beginning to suspect you have understood some of what I have posted - yes indeed that is exactly it, that is exactly what I have been saying since the beginning - digital is too perfect for you, you don't like it when it's too perfect, you like the colouration that analogue has. And I have said every time that I am fine with that. I cannot believe it's taken this long for that message to get across.

Surrealist wrote:

The digital to analog converters are a big problem.. because what they do is change sound waves into digits which is not how our bodies are designed to hear sound. This conversion, however accurate one might proclaim is simply unnatural to our ears and listening experience. People can tell the difference, and this is why you have a growing community of people that are understanding this.. if not only on an intuitive level.

The temptation to say that our bodies are not designed to hear the grooves on a vinyl LP is simply too great to ignore.

Sorry, I could not resist, but that is how your comment sounds to me - your body isn't designed to hear electrons flowing in a wire either. All these things are unnatural.

Yes it is intuitive, but that doesn't always mean it is right or when it is right it was right for right reasons. Flipping a coin will get you right half the time, but never for the right reason.

I am certain people can tell the difference because there are differences, and I have detailed what those differences are in several posts in this thread. I will not claim that people can hear all the differences, because I do not believe that they can, but there are some that people can differentiate between under the right conditions. I have said several times I was not being subjective in any of those posts - I made objective observations about those differences but offered no subjective opinion about them. I said the noise floor different, I never said which one sounded better or which I preferred. I said the detail is different, I never said which one sounded better or which I preferred. I said the channel separation was different, I never said which one sounded better or which I preferred. I said the total harmonic distortion was different, I never said which one sounded better or which I preferred.

And I'm not going to.

Edited by Dean - October 17 2012 at 18:17

What?