[anetode]

Quote:

Isn't the realiser a solution if you are on the move? 

It could be. Another solution, one that is more flexible and probably more useful for mixing, would be SPL's Phonitor. I've had a chance to briefly play around with the Phonitor and it is great fun. I'd also love to try out the Realiser. Some people go as far as to plan whole trips to studios just to make a Realiser preset to use for casual home listening.

 

[uchihaitachi]

Quote:

It could be. Another solution, one that is more flexible and probably more useful for mixing, would be SPL's Phonitor. I've had a chance to briefly play around with the Phonitor and it is great fun. I'd also love to try out the Realiser. Some people go as far as to plan whole trips to studios just to make a Realiser preset to use for casual home listening.

If I had the realiser, I would feel guilty to randomly drop in to amazing speaker set up rooms and in a way steal their sound! 

 

[jcx]

try professional studios - they usually already have an hourly rate worked out
 
many enthusiasts with high end setups may enjoy trying your Smyth Realizer when you come over for the calibration - and you can at least spring for a nice dinner, event tickets, fine beverages as compensation

 

[bigshot]

Would it exactly duplicate the effects of the gazillion settings and DSPs on A/V amps nowadays?

 

[autoteleology]

It would have to be calibrated to precisely match the mixing stage. I don't know if that's possible, because I've never used one.

But there would still be the problem of dynamics. Headphones can suck up loud peaks that speakers blast out.

 
The reason that I would prefer a headphone over a speaker is because of consistency. Headphones, especially ones with huge drivers like a Stax Lambda, almost always sound pretty much the same every time you wear them. There's some small changes depending on where and how they are placed on your head, but they are negligible outside of harmonics at a high enough frequency to be inaudible anyways.
 
The same is not true with a speaker setup. You have to worry about room dimensions, speaker placement and angles, acoustic treatment, sweet spots... I would prefer not to worry about such things and just focus on actually producing music. Worse is better, in my opinion. I'll gladly trade a small amount of possible performance for a large leap in consistency and simplicity.

 

[bigshot]

But that's why they do room treatments and eq calibration on studio monitors. I have never worked in a single studio that used headphones for anything other than isolation in tracking, and I've worked in some pretty nice rooms.
 
Personally, I think the wild variations in sound quality in recent recordings is due to home studios that haven't calibrated and made sure they are to spec.

 

[uchihaitachi]

Does the term high fidelity encompass recordings themselves or not?

 

[bigshot]

Yes. The earliest LP records sometimes had a FFRR logo on them, which stood for Full Frequency Response Recording.

 

[uchihaitachi]

In your experience, what is the modern day mastering engineer's ethos? Is it still FFRR or different?

 

[jaddie]

Quote:

Yes. The earliest LP records sometimes had a FFRR logo on them, which stood for Full Frequency Response Recording.

Tidbit: the first application of FFRR technology was a hydrophone for listening to submarines in WWII, then it was applied to Decca/London records 78rpm releases, subsequently LPs.  FFRR meant 80Hz - 15KHz.  

 

[autoteleology]

That doesn't sound like something that would pass for hi-fi today.

 

[jaddie]

Quote:

That doesn't sound like something that would pass for hi-fi today.

The LPs are actually quite good, even by today's standards.  Mono of course.

 

[uchihaitachi]

If high fidelity reproduction is being true to the recording, is there a term for an approach to the recording process itself where the aim is to record the music exactly as it is as well as capturing the exact recording environment? I guess in a way minimising EQing etc to make the recording sound better.

 

[jcx]

binaural dummy head recording - not popular - doesn't sound right played back over stereo loudspeakers
 
literal "realism" is way back of the que compared to making commercial recordings that sell to the masses

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

If high fidelity reproduction is being true to the recording, is there a term for an approach to the recording process itself where the aim is to record the music exactly as it is as well as capturing the exact recording environment? I guess in a way minimising EQing etc to make the recording sound better.

 
I'm afraid I don't understand the question. EQ is used to make the recording sound better... Not using it wouldn't help at all. A recording isn't something that is "captured", it is created. Mike placement, mixing balances, EQ of the various channels, signal processing... all these things are creative choices made to organize the sound into a blend that makes sense to the ear. Without that, the sound would be imbalanced and dense. I'm sure you've heard bootleg recordings that are just captured with a microphone at a concert. They don't sound anything like actually *being* at the concert. In order to get close to that, you have to organize the sound using the tools on the mixing board. Even live CDs are recorded with separate channels that are mixed, EQed and processed.
 
I guess JCX's mention of binaural recordings answers your question, but that is a miking technique. EQ doesn't have much to do with it.