True or false claims about audiophiles & science

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jjnunes@sonic.net wrote:
> Buster Mudd <mr_furious@mail.com> wrote:
> > (And don't get me started on the viability of "correct tonality
when
> > describing musical harmony!)
>
> Started in what way? Musical theorists do that all the time. Are
> Pythagoras, Kirnberger, Werckmeister, Rameau, Messiaen, et al all
wrong?


But the more savvy music theorists will use a term like "proper" or
"appropriate" or maybe even "contextually dictated", rather than
"correct". They know there is no universally "correct" tonality,
because that implies that certain notes and harmonies would be
"incorrect". That pedantic notion only exists in college exams; in
music there is only the infinite gray continuum which extends from
Contextually Acceptable to Contextually Ill-Suited.

 

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Buster Mudd <mr_furious@mail.com> wrote:
> jjnunes@sonic.net wrote:

>> Started in what way? Musical theorists do that all the time. Are
>> Pythagoras, Kirnberger, Werckmeister, Rameau, Messiaen, et al all
> wrong?


> But the more savvy music theorists will use a term like "proper" or
> "appropriate" or maybe even "contextually dictated", rather than
> "correct". They know there is no universally "correct" tonality,
> because that implies that certain notes and harmonies would be
> "incorrect". That pedantic notion only exists in college exams; in
> music there is only the infinite gray continuum which extends from
> Contextually Acceptable to Contextually Ill-Suited.

Oh, sometimes.........

It's hard to argue about Pythagoras being 'contextually accetable or ill
suited' as an octave or musical fifth for instance has audible beats or
it does not, (except to a deaf person) as it's simple physics. He was
also quite contemptous of those who disregarded his insistance on a
mathematical approach calling the practices of those who tuned more
randomly as 'toturing the tuning pins.' Rates of beats within
temperaments of course, is contextual.

Even the French, with the oft repeated phrase of 'bon gou^t' can be very
rigid and dogmatic. Take a look at Marcel Dupre's improvisation treatise
sometime.

Not that I disagree with your point, though. ;-)

 

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1-3 you should have said the audiophiles found out they were important.
The engineers knew about them, they just didn't think they were
important. I'm not a big fan of current measuring systems. Almost no
measaurment is being done in the time domain which to me is the most
important. A mediocre frequency response I can listen to even if it's
less than thrilling. Bad time information gives me a headache.

 

[chung]

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gcrain wrote:
> 1-3 you should have said the audiophiles found out they were important.
> The engineers knew about them, they just didn't think they were
> important. I'm not a big fan of current measuring systems. Almost no
> measaurment is being done in the time domain which to me is the most
> important. A mediocre frequency response I can listen to even if it's
> less than thrilling. Bad time information gives me a headache.

Amplifiers are typically minimum-phase systems, so the time-domain
response is dictated by the frequency domain response, and vice versa.
You only need to make measurements in one domain.

Can you provide examples of a product with good frequency response, but
has a time-domain response so bad that it gives you a headache?

 

[ban]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

Gary Eickmeier wrote:
> Steven Sullivan wrote:
>
>> Perusing the audiophile boards today, I come up on this:
>>
>> //
>>
>> "Here are some more audio phenomena that science cannot measure:
>>
>> 1. Soundstage capability.
>> 2. Correct tonality of instruments.
>
> The soundstage thing I agree with. This is a perception that depends
> on your stereo hearing, and there is no instrument that can
> communicate what this sounds like in a given setup. Such a
> measurement would be meaningless anyway, because each of us would
> have to relate it to the actual sound anyway, so why do it.
>
> What we CAN do is vary the parameters of the speaker and room and see
> how each variable affects soundstaging, and thus learn what causes
> what. In my experimentation, it is clear to me that what we are
> hearing is a comination of the summing localization between the two
> speakers, and between the speakers and the reflections of their
> output from the room surfaces. If you pull the speakers out from the
> front wall, for instance, you notice an immediate increase in depth
> of imaging (soundstage), then if you push them back toward the wall,
> the soundstage collapses into the speakers again. Same with sidewall
> reflections. Bring them away from the sidewalls and you get more
> spaciousness, especially with the more omnidirectional speakers. Then
> you can experiment with radiatin pattern, and see the effects of
> that. And so forth.
> Gary Eickmeier

I absolutely agree with Gary. The effect of a wide soundstage can be
extended to the point that the soundstage includes the listener and the
instruments are heard all around you, you seem to be on the stage yourself.
I get this perception when I have my omnidirectional speakers only 2feet
away in the middle of the room. The instruments then seem to be 10 to 30
feet away and are arranged in a horseshoe shaped form around the center.
This is with an acoustic 2 mike recording. Uakti, Mapa, a Brazilian group.
--
ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy