[bigshot]

Tape does not have better soundstage, because it has worse crosstalk. Crosstalk is directly linked to stereo imaging.

 

[sonitus mirus]

Troll or not, the recent replies to another "new" subscriber is a wonderful opportunity to clearly show how false assumptions and unscientific ideas are easy to refute. I'm not sure if kangaroo actually believes readers are frustrated and he is "getting" to everyone or not, but the joke is on him, if there is a joke.

 

[old tech]

Tape does not have better soundstage, because it has worse crosstalk. Crosstalk is directly linked to stereo imaging.

I think sometimes, some people confuse accurate soundstage with phase errors or other distortions.

I remember a while back having a debate with a work colleague regarding his assertion that vinyl has a better, 'more 3D' sound stage than digital media. I knew what he was on about as I have experienced a wider and, seemingly more enveloping sound stage when playing my vinyl. Putting aside mastering differences, it was clear to me that the wider sound stage was fake and due to incorrect alignment of the cart rather than reproducing the mix more accurately. Most of this wider sound stage disappeared when I correctly aligned the cart. I also noticed this with some of the cheaper turntables and cartridges.

I liken it to the sound I get from my clock radio when I press the "Wide" button. It does make the sound appear wider than the size of the clock radio, but obviously fake. If Kanga prefers the fake or manufactured sound stage over what the artist/mixing/mastering engineer intended then there are better digital solutions with DSP. Alternatively, he can stick with analog media/playback equipment and hook it up to a pair of Bose 901s and he'll be in heaven.

 

[bigshot]

It might be an error masquerading as the effect on timing of speakers in a room. But there is a lot more going on in a room when it comes to sound location.

 

[71 dB]

I think sometimes, some people confuse accurate soundstage with phase errors or other distortions.

People especially seem to confuse sonic accuracy with more pleasing sound.

I remember a while back having a debate with a work colleague regarding his assertion that vinyl has a better, 'more 3D' sound stage than digital media. I knew what he was on about as I have experienced a wider and, seemingly more enveloping sound stage when playing my vinyl. Putting aside mastering differences, it was clear to me that the wider sound stage was fake and due to incorrect alignment of the cart rather than reproducing the mix more accurately. Most of this wider sound stage disappeared when I correctly aligned the cart. I also noticed this with some of the cheaper turntables and cartridges.

The interesting thing about vinyl is that lateral movement of the needle corresponds "mid" -channel while vertical movement corresponds "side" channel. It is pretty clear that these two directions produce different distortions meaning the "mid" channel contains different extra harmonics due to non-linearities than the "side" channel and this creates the "smeared" and "rich" three-dimensional soundstage cloud people seem to love. The fact that elliptical filtering is used to avoid extreme vertical movement of the needle makes the sound more mono-like at low frequencies supporting the pleasantness of the soundstage (ILD increasing with frequency is "natural").

This kind of pleasantness can be taken advantage of also in the digital world: It is easy to process "mid" and "side" channels separately for this effect. Analog world can teach a lot about what is pleasant for the ear and we can apply that on the digital world. Best of both worlds! Digital recordings might be unnaturally "accurate" for simple reasons such as the microphones not moving at all while a person listening in a room will move/turn his/her head a little bit. The small inaccuraties and fluctuations of analog recorders might remove this "unnatural accuracy" while the transparency and accuracy of digital recorders do nothing about it. Real life sounds are always more or less "colorized". There are micro-fluctuations caused by the acoustic environment and the movements of the listener. This means there must be an expected level for accuracy for our hearing and digital recordings can surpass this level becoming "too accurate" which translates to "clinical cold sound". The beauty of digital audio is that we can control the accuracy of sound very precisely. We can for example saturate the sound just the amount we want to make it "naturally accurate." Or we can fluctuate the gain just a little bit to remove the clinical cold feel, but still retain full perceived accuracy.

 

[gregorio]

I think sometimes, some people confuse accurate soundstage with phase errors or other distortions.

Soundstage is a perception and therefore only exists within each individual's brain. As with most other perceptions, it can be influenced by several different actual audio properties, freq response (obviously within the audible band), phase, crosstalk, etc.

The logical black hole that @audiokangaroo can't avoid is that tape is less accurate than 16/44 for every single one of these audio properties! If tape were better for even just one of those properties, then it would be a more tricky argument but as it isn't, he hasn't got a leg to stand on. I'm sure that wouldn't stop him from trying though

G

 

[bigshot]

Like the black knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail... "It's just a flesh wound!"

 

[BobG55]

 

[theaudiologist1]

people talking about bits and kHz while in the real world the only important number that matters is the dynamic range. anything less than DR10 is garbage. And that's one great thing about SACD's: you're almost always guaranteed a great recording, or at the very worst an "OK" recording, but no brickwalled abominations. No need to waste days or weeks checking the dynamic range of every release and talking about which CD to get on Steve Hoffman.

 

[bigshot]

I’ve gotten bad SACDs. Not because of the format, but because the music was remixed poorly.

 

[old tech]

people talking about bits and kHz while in the real world the only important number that matters is the dynamic range. anything less than DR10 is garbage. And that's one great thing about SACD's: you're almost always guaranteed a great recording, or at the very worst an "OK" recording, but no brickwalled abominations. No need to waste days or weeks checking the dynamic range of every release and talking about which CD to get on Steve Hoffman.

The DR is an indicator but unless it is an extremely low number it cannot be assumed that a higher number is necessarily better.

A high DR number may say something about the dynamics of the recording but it doesn't say anything about the other qualities, eg quality of the source master, EQ choices, use of no-noise and so on.

One example is the double CD of best of 10cc. It has a DR of 8 but it is a huge improvement over some of the earlier 10cc releases that have a DR of 13. The former is a bit louder but it is also clearer, cleaner and with more punch, without being fatiguing.

 

[gregorio]

people talking about bits and kHz while in the real world the only important number that matters is the dynamic range. anything less than DR10 is garbage. And that's one great thing about SACD's: you're almost always guaranteed a great recording, or at the very worst an "OK" recording, but no brickwalled abominations. No need to waste days or weeks checking the dynamic range of every release and talking about which CD to get on Steve Hoffman.

I would say pretty much the opposite, that in the real world, the DR number doesn't really matter at all. Firstly, it's a pretty suspect measurement in the first place. For example, it's been demonstrated that an LP can have a DR measurement 2-4 higher than the digital master from which it was cut. Secondly, it also depends on the DR we have to start with; let's say we have a recording of a composition that without any compression at all reads DR9 and a symphony recording has had a large amount of compression, say 16dB, which results in a DR11 reading. Is the first garbage and the second great?

In critical listening conditions, not having a really hammered recording is generally better but the DR measurement is not necessarily an indicator of whether the recording has been hammered with compression and some music genres are designed from the outset to be hammered any way!

G

 

[theaudiologist1]

I’ve gotten bad SACDs. Not because of the format, but because the music was remixed poorly.

The only bad one for me was the Alice In Chains Greatest Hits SACD.

The DR is an indicator but unless it is an extremely low number it cannot be assumed that a higher number is necessarily better.

A high DR number may say something about the dynamics of the recording but it doesn't say anything about the other qualities, eg quality of the source master, EQ choices, use of no-noise and so on.

One example is the double CD of best of 10cc. It has a DR of 8 but it is a huge improvement over some of the earlier 10cc releases that have a DR of 13. The former is a bit louder but it is also clearer, cleaner and with more punch, without being fatiguing.

There is no way that DR8 will sound good, specially with Rock or Classical. Maybe DR10 will sound better than DR13 if mastered well.

I would say pretty much the opposite, that in the real world, the DR number doesn't really matter at all. Firstly, it's a pretty suspect measurement in the first place. For example, it's been demonstrated that an LP can have a DR measurement 2-4 higher than the digital master from which it was cut. Secondly, it also depends on the DR we have to start with; let's say we have a recording of a composition that without any compression at all reads DR9 and a symphony recording has had a large amount of compression, say 16dB, which results in a DR11 reading. Is the first garbage and the second great?

In critical listening conditions, not having a really hammered recording is generally better but the DR measurement is not necessarily an indicator of whether the recording has been hammered with compression and some music genres are designed from the outset to be hammered any way!

G

DR8-12 are what will depend on the genre, but less than DR8 is objectively horrible no matter what genre it is, and sadly modern recrodings have dynamic ranges of 4-5 and some I saw even 2! It's impossible to be a non-classical audiophile these days.

 

[old tech]

You have no idea ^

 

[gregorio]

There is no way that DR8 will sound good, specially with Rock or Classical. Maybe DR10 will sound better than DR13 if mastered well.

DR8-12 are what will depend on the genre, but less than DR8 is objectively horrible no matter what genre it is, and sadly modern recrodings have dynamic ranges of 4-5 and some I saw even 2! It's impossible to be a non-classical audiophile these days.

I would think that a completely uncompressed recording of John Cage's 4:33 could have a DR of about 1, certainly less than 8! Would that be objectively horrible? Subjectively you might not like the piece but it wouldn't be objectively horrible and the same could be said of many pieces. Even with more traditional classical music, massive amounts of compression can be subjectively better, the hugely compressed Classic FM is the only way I can listen to classical music when driving for example but I certainly wouldn't find it subjectively better when listening critically in a more controlled environment.

The DR measurement can be an indicator of too heavily applied compression/limiting but not always and even when it is, it's not always relevant any way!

G