wmedrz
100+ Head-Fier
How are the signal and music different? In the context of the discussion isn't the music a signal, and the signal the music or am I perhaps not understanding you?
Deep crap bruh
How are the signal and music different? In the context of the discussion isn't the music a signal, and the signal the music or am I perhaps not understanding you?
How are the signal and music different? In the context of the discussion isn't the music a signal, and the signal the music or am I perhaps not understanding you?
Perhaps its just my ultra-picky attitude but the way I see it, the signal is a carrier for (one channel of) the music, but for there to be music there needs to be a listener whose ear/brain interprets the vibrations in the air as such. I see music as a percept, something meaningful to us as human beings but a signal is just oscillations on a wire, no particular meaning, just information.
How you look at that really depends on the context.....
Music is "the experience" and the signal is "how the experience gets to your brain".
However,when we're discussing audio technology, the only part we're really talking about is the signal.
(So, when we're discussing audio equipment, we generally would say that "the job of the equipment is to deliver the signal to you as accurately as possible".)
And, yes, there is room for asking whether the goal is to reproduce the signal as accurately as possible, or to reproduce the experience as accurately as possible.
Would "a home theater system" be more accurate if it made your floor sticky and wafted the smell of popcorn into the air?
And, if you wanted to light up a Rembrandt, would it be more accurate to use lights that accurately displayed the colors of the paint, or to match the light in Rembrandt's studio?
However, in the specific context I'm referring to - which is "descriptions of audiophile gear".......
We often see various phrasing that suggests that the music is some sort of an intangible part of the signal.
As a rough analogy, they seem to believe that there is some sort of "soul" involved that is connected to but separate from "the signal".
For example, we hear of gear "that specs well but doesn't convey the music well"....
And we often hear descriptions of gear "conveying the emotion in the music" (or failing to do so) as if it were something separate from simply reproducing the signal accurately.
And we hear descriptions of things like "rhythm and pace".
The dictionary definitions of those words tell me unambiguously that, if the signal is playing at the correct speed, then the rhythm and pace must be correct.
However, audiophiles will insist that certain equipment can somehow get them wrong - even though acknowledging that the speed itself is dead on perfect.
(I'm inclined to suspect that, with claims about "rhythm and pace", some other characteristic, perhaps an odd frequency response or some form of distortion,
"makes the music sound less lively", which people then MISINTERPRET as affecting the actual rhythm or pace of the notes...
they're really claiming that "it sounds as if the rhythm is wrong", but simply not explaining their experience very precisely.)
As I mentioned above, there is a sort of grey area between conveying the signal and conveying the experience.
For example, a live concert may sound a certain way, but the recording you purchase may sound quite different.
Then, a particular piece of equipment may add a significant amount of second harmonic distortion.
And this may, at the same time, make the reproduction of the signal obviously LESS accurate, but make the subjective listening experience MORE like being at the actual concert.
So do we "rate" it based on the reproduction of the signal, or on the reproduction of the original experience?
My personal impression is that we should rate the accuracy with which the signal is reproduced... and leave it to the mastering engineer to get the signal right.
After all, that added distortion that makes a certain recording sound better, is equally likely to make another one sound worse.
But that is clearly a matter of personal preference.
Likewise, they will suggest that you ignore how well Delta-Sigma DACs WORK and focus on all the complicated processing they're inflicting on your precious music.
Just out of curiosity, to your mind, if a DAC measures really well, what are the mechanisms by which it changes a signal to something different? If it measures well, what else should we go with to determine how it will do? And assume that the DAC chip that measures well is implemented properly. Where will it fail in terms of audio signal reproduction?Here's where I part company with your view - the WORK of an audio DAC is to deliver a signal which listeners are able to interpret as music. To take one example, ES9023 (a popular cooking S-D DAC with decent enough measurements) doesn't do that for me.
I take it that in your view the 'work' of a DAC is to deliver immaculate measurements?
To be fair, before we do that even we need to prove that noise modulation is somehow audible and discretely detectable by the brain, and if it is, at what point does it become audible. Measureable does not mean audible, people really over-estimate how sensitive the hearing system in the brain is. It is certainly amazing, but it is still limited. We can't assume something has an impact simply because it might. I am not saying that there is nothing to your point, but these are things that need objective data. Not trying to grind your gears mate so hopefully you don't take this as a personal attack, just a conversation among curious people who enjoy audio.Clearly with DACs that don't deliver a signal that results in audible satisfaction (various S-D DACs I've tried do not) then there's something being added to the signal which wasn't in the original. My current hypothesis is that its noise being added, modulated by the signal. So I reckon we need to extend the current suite of measurements to include relevant tests for noise modulation.
Measureable does not mean audible, people really over-estimate how sensitive the hearing system in the brain is
Interesting post, and thanks for the thoughts. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the need for evidence. While I enjoy the subjective very much, ultimately I know that for any actual phenomenon that is experienced subjectively, it is ultimately tied to biomechanical process systems in the brain and body. People are just biological machines, there is nothing going on that isn't subject to the laws of physics, audio perception is just another process, nothing more, nothing less. There may well be things happening that aren't currently measureable, but because we don't know if they exist at all, or if they do, how to measure them, it is useless to speculate about them in terms of how they impact the perception of sound.Yes, I agree, but they also under-estimate how sensitive we are to certain aspects of the 'music'. So for example, using Fletcher-Munson to estimate what's going to be audible and what's not, when those curves are built from the audibility thresholds of single tones, not music. To me, that's a huge leap of faith to assume single tone audibility thresholds should be transferable to music and needs detailed justification which so far I've not seen.
Some of the most promising work in audio perception comes from Al Bregman's 'Auditory Scene Analysis' but IME numbers guys seem strangely reluctant to enter into discussion of it.
As regards your comments on 'needing to prove', I disagree. 'Proof' exists in mathematics only, there's already evidence that some S-D DACs (I'm not extending the discussion to S-D in general) don't deliver the goods sonically.
While I enjoy the subjective very much, ultimately I know that for any actual phenomenon that is experienced subjectively, it is ultimately tied to biomechanical process systems in the brain and body.
People are just biological machines...
...there is nothing going on that isn't subject to the laws of physics, audio perception is just another process, nothing more, nothing less.
Not sure if you're implying this but...does this mean all people (biological machines) process audio the same -- assuming you control for their different hearing capabilities? If so, then wouldn't we all like the same headphone sound signatures? Seems to fly in the face of the various folks that love/hate the Grado/Beyer/Denon/Fostex/Focal/Audeze/HiFiMan/Senn/AKG/etc. sound....People are just biological machines, there is nothing going on that isn't subject to the laws of physics, audio perception is just another process, nothing more, nothing less.