http://www.boston.com/business/personaltec...d_not_improved/

Thought I'd post this. There should be some healthy discussion

Unbelievable. I just don't know where to start

Let me pick this quote, then:



As a guitarist, I just *have* to comment on this one. The reason a lot of guitarists prefer tube amplifiers over transistor ones has to do with the fact that the natural sound of an electrical guitar sound *sucks*. A guitar amplifier (edit: also a transistor based amplifier) is made to alter/colour the sound to make it "good", and a lot of guitarists just like tube saturation and the smooth overdrive you can get from them.

This, off course, has nothing to do with transparency and being true to the original. It's the distortion that tube fans like.

So how much did they pay him? Or is the "reporter" maybe someway in a "relation" to the industry about which he is reporting?

Old story - the press as well is just good business.

Gotta agree with him about displays though. Even as a proud Dell 2405 owner I can acknowledge the superiority of CRTs for movie playback.

I don't disagree with anything he says and it's nice to see a true audiophile in the mainstream press. He nailed everything.

Night Rain, you'll probably catch a lot of flak here, but I'm with you. I live in Boston and typically can live without reading the Globe, but I noticed this article this morning over someone's shoulder and had to find a copy to read. Informed people can argue it either way, but it's fun to see this topic being discussed. I still listen to a lot of vinyl in an MP3 world.

Axon, I thought the same thing until I saw a 1080p source on a Sony Qualia 006. It was absolutely stunning. When they get the price for that technology into a reasonable range - compared to the current $13,000 MSRP for the Qualia - I'll be the first one in line. For now, I own an HDTV CRT.

Night Rain,

"Surely you can't be serious...."

Hey, lets all pick a sentence from the article, and comment on it.


What crisis? The crisis of producing more and more identically-sounding low-quality (As in, artistical quality) music, which appeals to an audience which is dumber than a goldfish?
It seems like the music industry's propaganda has worked on far more people than I thought -- But then again, people who listen to "Britney Spears" shouldnt be expected to think independently.

I hope that some people will agree with me, that (by far) most of the music played in pop-oriented "musically entertaining" broadcasts - be it TV, radio, or other form of broadcast media - has absolutely minimal stimulational value for an intelligent mind.

I have to admit that I dont buy music CD's untill I have listened them through thoroughly. A test which very few bands/albums pass...


Edit: Typeo.

Full ACK. One of the reasons why i neither have a TV nor a radio. It would just use up space and attract dust.

I would consider myself a "modern retro". I do think that yesterdays tech was superior to the current one in some aspects (i'm not only talking about audio here). Heck, i'm even thinking about starting a retro-pub with a buddy. However, that article is so full of false conclusions and twisty-logic, i wouldn't even know where to start correcting it.

Even the CRT-thingie - while currently true - is stupid when looking at the big picture. Would you have enjoyed watching movies on a 60Hz CRT? I doubt so. Compared to CRTs, the TFT technology is still young - wait until its mature and then compare it to CRTs - then you will be able to say if the technology itself went backwards or forward in this case.

I prefer tubes, I prefer vinyl and find MP3 or any lossy codec unlistenable so I 100% agree with the article. Don't care if anyone else does I know what I prefer to listen to.

How do you feel about an mp3 played thru a tube amp?

Or vinyl recorded to digital and played back?

Could you ABX?

Wow, thats either a bold or stupid statement. The game is on: pick any state-of-the-art lossy codec at 200kbps VBR and show us how unlistenable(and therefore distinguishable) it sounds to you on a normal music sample.

TOS violation...


maybe someone should make an icon representative of a TOS #8 violation. It would be be faster to use.

This article makes wild conclusions on some isolated and mostly unrelated grain of truth.

Overall I totally agree with Lyx. I am a retro. Avoid radio and TV like plague, but with some sense. I would not give up my shiny Yamaha RX-V650 for my 20 year old stereo amp. I try not to buy new CD-s because I hate clipressed music, but CD as a media is far outperforms my vinyls. An I hated that constant scratching noise from the vinyl. In addition I am very mobile middle aged guy with small rented flat. My music collection, and it is not big, would weight several 100 kilos, and it would cost me a fortune to relocate or just simply store it. Now I can keep it digitally on a single HD.

I love technology. Just be choosy and do not be a sucker.

Ah and the warm sound of a tube is total bollocks in my view. Please direct me to any blind test. In fact somebody should record a solid state and a tube and let's do a proper ABX on it. No speakers no micro-phone just a dummy load, which is connected into a extremely good quality soundcard with some adapter. I cannot believe nobody did this test. We just need 2 top quality amp. One solid state and one tube.

Triza

I agree with many of the things said, newer != better. However, some newer technologies have their advantages even when the quality is not better, something that even the article pointed out.

As for tubes vs transistors, I never compared them and I doubt I would bother to do so.

On the vynil debate, we used to have a good Technics turntable and I really enjoyed the sound of it. I prefered vynil over cassette any day. But when the CD came, I liked it better than vynil. Don't get me wrong, I still like the sound of vynils, but the CD is a much more practical solution that sounds better (TOS 8 lovers, I can ABX the annoying cracks of vynil discs anyday ).

mp3 is just like cd vs vynil (in the practical solution sense). It might not reach top quality or transparency, but can certainly reach the target quality. It gives the advantage of storing much more songs in mid to acceptable-quality for portable players that will be used on many noisy enviroments, or good and very good quality for the more purists and still be able to store more.

I find it odd that the article didn't mention lossless techniques, or DVD when compared to VHS or Beta.

Media, biased and incomplete just so they can make their point.

I asume thats exactly the point - we care about the substance, not the packaging, hype and trend. If a new tech does indeed offer significant advantages, then we like it - but if an "obsolete" tech performs better, then we have no problem with it "not being trendy and new". Some may call that pragmatic and soulless... well, i prefer to search for the "soul" in the product instead of the package/propaganda.

Sure, sometimes i do like some nostalgic feelings as well..... but not to such an extend that it makes me a blind fanboy. Old tech was once "new tech" after all, so... :)

When the discussion is about even newer media like DVD-Audio, SACD, ... most of the HA opinion is pretty much clear: CD quality is good enough (with proper mastering assumption). So clearly not all new technology is better. But as far as tube-amp vs. transistor, or vinyl vs. CD goes, there simply is no argument as far as I am concerned.

Otherwise the clueless journalist is not the first one. Fire them all, I say...(hoping his boss reads this forum)

I live about 15 min from the Globe HQ. Maybe I should print out this thread and pay a visit to the author...

Nothing he said is really a TOS violation. He finds lossy codecs unlistenable because he has it in his head that they sound bad.

But.. um.. Night Rain.. if you don't mind me asking, why do you visit this website?

I don't agree with several of the points put forth in this article (zOMG vinyl has teh infinite resolution so it sounds bettar OLOL), but if people happen to prefer the harmonic distortion from tube amps, what are we to tell them not to?

I personally prefer solid state electronics (transparency is my goal), but listening is a subjective experience and coloration isn't neccessarily a bad thing.

I agree. Personally I'd rather start from a baseline of transparency, and if I want "the warmth of tubes" I'll use DSP to get it.

I think it is true that the benefit of SACD compared to CD comes down to the mastering and also the type of music. However, I feel that one needs to be a really good mastering engineer to get the best out of CD, perhaps SACD doesn't require as good mastering to still sound really good? So one could say that the benefit of DSD technology is that it makes it easier to make a good quality digital transfer, compared to CD which is more reliant on the particular skill of the mastering enginner.

I own three Miles Davis SACDs as well as the respective remastered CD versions. On two of them, Kind of Blue and Miles Smiles the difference is immediately noticeable. On the third one, the double album Big Fun, the main difference seems to be more related to the mix, specifically the drums seem louder and more present on the SACD compared to the CD. For that album the SACD and CD were mastered by different enginners. So perhaps the difference in all three cases is related more to the exact mixing, rather than the SACD format itself?

In Japan several Miles Davis albums have been released on CD that are PCM conversions of the DSD master, so if one was to compare the SACD against its ported CD equivilent, only then would issues of mixing be removed.

The author should read this:

The 10 biggest lies in audio

Sorry, but you're wrong. The current bad mastering practices are not a result of lacking skill - mastering engineers are *intentionally* told to increase the loudness even if that means that the audio gets destroyed. It is a political decision. Search the forums for the keyword "overcompression" and you should find plenty of threads for more info about this.

From the article:



All I can do is laugh. When someone shows me scientific proof that this is true... wait forget that. When someone can develop a test for hearing fatigue, and then show me that listening to lossy encoded music causes greater hearing fatigue then listening to lossless music, I might take interest.

I use FLAC and other lossless and it's a great site to keep up with new releases and trends.

What is there to say? I thought everyone knew that "tubes" sound better, that vinyl is superior to CD and that CD is vastly better than mp3... :-P

Well, the world is full of "experts". After the london bombings, one "expert" said that it was al qaeda - reasoning: the bombs went of simultaneusly. Well, there you have it: whenever some bombs will go off simultaneusly, it is already proven that it was al qaeda's work - because only they are able to do such a thing, right?

Proposal: whenever you read the word "expert" in the press, then instead read "paid source" or "poor idiot who's work no one takes serious and who therefore needs to make that up with publicity". Or maybe they just released a book which they want to sell?

Oh, and dont forget the imaginary "shields up!" scene in starship enterprise when reading the word "expert".

edit: In relation to this thread, this art project may be interesting to know:
http://www.goebbels.info/goebbels-press.htm

- Lyx

I liked this sentence the best:



Cassette tapes??? Anyone else remember how bad those were? Horrible tape hiss, fluttering sound, the "Dolby" system that would remove all the highs?

This is a typical article in a "mainstream" publication, which is basically just opinion (informed or not) dressed up as a "report", whether the issue is politics or technology. Caveat lector.

Warm up your credit card: Sony SXRD

You know, it's wierd. With a voice recording compressed to MP3 mono at lowish bitrates (say around 64k or less) I do get this strange sensation that is really bothersome. It's almost like when someone claps you on the ears, or when you change altitude and need to pop your ears. I'm not sure I would call it fatiguing, but I can only take so much of it and then I have to stop listening, it's very annoying.

I doubt that anyone is questioning that narrowband files do not sound nice and are annoying over a longer course of time.

That statement had me bothered too. Anyone who has spent several hours in a studio mixing down an album knows that hearing fatigue happens when you concentrate on music, even if it's all analog, tube, whatever. Prolonged concentration of any kind is fatiguing. I think it's just that Britton's brain is fatigued trying to come up with an explanation on why his particular audio field is more valid than the encoding scene's field. Maybe he feels threatened by it? Who knows, and who cares since *we* know the truth, right

This is just typical of the kind of crap that is consitently served to us by the "news" media in general. You always have to keep in mind that "news" doesn't necessarily equal "facts".

No what's typically fed to you by the mainstream press is that MP3 sound as good as CD. Redbook is perfect and all amps sound the same. THAT'S the bullshit we're fed day in and day out.

Bull. I dare you to find any reference whatsoever to a mainstream press article that says any of those three statements.

That crap is fed to us daily, Ipods rule etc. Very rare that someone is actually knowledgeable enough in the press to admit that Redbook stinks, that vinyl is better and in many cases tubes blow SS away. Most columnists think Bose are great. I assume you do too.

Why does Redbook stink? Why is vinyl better? And why do tubes blow SS away?

Can you actually explain any of those statements in an objective and analytical manner?

And I don't mean "well, I performed this sighted test, and I got this funny feeling in my stomach that the cd player was just crap," I mean can you actually give reasons for why the things you believe are actually (as you feel) correct?

Your telephatic skills are flawed. Bose is frowned upon on ha.org - but because of objectively founded reasons, not because of *asumptions*.

There's a pretty wide gap between "MP3s are as good as CDs" and "ipods rule". I will admit that I have seen some authors state that 192kbps encodes of <insert your encoder here> are very good, but you'll rarely if ever hear them say that in the context of home audio/real stereo listening.

Most "mainstream press" articles I have read on the subject state that vinyl is superior to CD and that sound quality differs considerably between some/all amps, especially high end ones.

Stop whining that you're in the minority, because you're not.

ohh christ what now? It's funny you should mention this article, because I get the globe all of the time and it's funny I have haven't read this one. I find it highly ironic to make such ridiculous audiophile claims in city that breath's life into science and technology! ignorance. In terms of the tube amp vs. the transistor, you really need some scientific proove or else you are just pulling stuff out of your ass. I personally inherited a tube-amplifer but I am not going to make any claims it sounds better than solid-state to do that you would really need to look into such factors as total-harmonic distortion etc.




Seriously though do we need anything more? We learned why SACD more specifically 1-bit sigma delta converters are not distortion free. DVD-A on the other hand is the lesser of the two evils, but this DSD crappola isn't going to fly. If I had to choose I would still prefer LPCM multichannel content. The invention of the DualDisc was pretty inuitive except it doesn't conform to the redbook standard . Point being is that it would really only find it's niche with the hi-end folks and maybe people who do their own authoring. Other than that it probably won't fly don't forget about the clash of the titans with DVD-Plus. I love the way these companies try to bullshit eachother over just to make more cash in marketplace so pathetic rather than actually attempt to make advancements in technology.

Well... I think in one point the author of the article is getting close to the truth (but not more than that!). since MP3 and all other lossy codecs *are* lossy, that would mean that they all suffer from a qualityloss that can be audible at low encoding rates. But that's already all that I can agree with. Higher encodings don't suffer from any audible qualityloss (or you've got really good ears).
But what he's probably talking about are those (*) bad encoded songs that one can buy from those (*) online music stores.

*please insert your own taboo word here

As for the part of vinyl sounding better than CD's... well they're both lossless and it's the consumer's own choice to like either one better (or both). Some prefer vinyl and others prefer CD's (at least that's how I think it is). So you can't directly compare them.

(Did anyone notice that the author of this article is comparing vinyl records and CD's with MP3 playing hardware? Maybe I'm a bit too picky here because everybody knows what he means, but I somehow think that it's quite amusing that he's blaming the MP3 players and not the codec for the "bad" sound)

- Realityfreak

I was thinking exactly the same thing! that thought crossed my mind and it does in a way make sense were he is coming from, but still.

I could be wrong, but I don't think a CD can be lossless unless the master is digitally recorded at CD quality or worse.

You're 100% right. Technically the original analogue to digital conversion is lossy too but that's just being anal about it. Even a digital recording was an analogue sound wave first

However a properly mastered CD to the human ear might as well be lossless

Technically any analog process is lossy.

my take,

CRT's are still better than any flat screen i've seen until i did get to see OLED at my Uni. The contrast ratio is as good as a great CRT. So flat screen's right there in the catch-up game.

Vynil can sound great, cd can sound great, but vynil is sometimes mastered so the dynamics arent as compressed which explains why the author said that vynil had more "air" between the instruments. So yeah, vynil can sound better. I doubt most people in here have heard a good sounding vynil system w/ a good recording.

tubes _can_ sound better than SS. My tube-preamp slightly distorts the audio in a plesant way, very warm and smooth, and this distortion doesnt hurt any genre's of music i listen to, from IDM, metal, indie, classical, jazz, techno and hip-hop. it's a nice distortion that can make a lot of recordings sound a bit less sterile, and more like real music.

Of course if you view all distortion as bad (including equalizers) then maybe you'll just dismiss my opinions as fluff. My view's definitely go against the grain in these forums, but i've stood on both sides of the fence and now i'm sort of in the middle rocking back and forth. But try to think about how much a recording engineer screws with the original audio and distorts it, compresses it, cleans up voices, applies equalizers all to make it all sound "perfect"? Don't fool yourself.

-Joe