Well -- finished with all the year-end crap and biz for the sake of accounting only. Since it is late at night, time for another post. Nothing biographical, just about reproducing music and what I learned.
Music – Schiit is in the biz we are to reproduce it. 39 years ago, at my very first CES, I had the pleasure of being introduced to Peter Walker, the inventor of the Quad ESL. He was a delightful gentleman, a fan of classical music, a timeless giant of the audio biz, and a philosopher. Soon after my lengthy discussion with him I realized that even though I liked music and was capable of designing amplifiers at the time – I had absolutely no clue of what I was really supposed to do be doing in my chosen avocation.
I thought that I was building amps that had tighter and deeper bass, smooth midrange, and sparkling highs. What I learned from this wise old man that it was my mission to reproduce the music to transmit all aspects of it from live to reproduced. At first, I told him all about tighter and deeper bass, smooth midrange, and sparkling highs. Almost amused, he explained that proper music transmits emotion; that my job as an audio equipment designer is not merely dependent on proper measured parameters – it is most acceptable to the extent that emotion is conveyed.
Well, I heard what he said but it took years of trying to get my brain to absorb what he said. So all of these years later, I look up music for the first time in the dictionary:
Music: The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre. Just to be sure, I also looked up melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, and evocative:
Melody: A rhythmically organized sequence of single tones so related to one another as to make up a particular phrase or idea.
Harmony: The study of the structure, progression, and relation of chords.
Rhythm: The systematic arrangement of musical sounds, principally according to duration and periodic stress.
Timbre: The character or quality of a musical sound or voice as distinct from its pitch and intensity.
Evocative: Bringing strong images, memories, or feelings to mind.
Hmmm – evocative – feelings. Harkens back to exactly what Peter Walker told me almost 40 years ago. Music causes feelings. Classical, Jazz, Rock, Blues, Americana, all have timbre, rythym, harmony, and melody. Even pop (blech) music has all of the above. Rap – well so much for the missing melody – call it poetry. Techno is an another post.
Seems like the music is written to transmit the composer's/writer's feelings. Classical: Beethoven's 3rd “Heroic” Mahler's “Songs on the “Death of Children”. Thelonius Monk wrote “Ruby my Dear”. Common showtunes are “What is this thing called love?”, “Fly Me to the Moon”, and “All the Things You Are”. BB King - “The Thrill is Gone” The Rolling Stones - “You Can't Always Get What You Want” Hank Williams - “Lovesick Blues”. On and on.
Now, one thing I find interesting on one of the Sound Science threads is an extremely verbose 5 to 6 page a day ongoing discussion (at times quite vituperative) on the whether there is a measurable difference between R2R and Delta Sigma DACs. Most of these guys are so busy writing they seem to have little time for music listening. So, I guess I have to throw myself under the Sound Science bus by saying that for me, R2R does a much better job of portraying the music in a manner which allows me to forget the hardware I listen to and get the feelings of the music. On the whole, mind you. There are exceptions. It is apparent that many of you must agree with me, judging by our sales and what I read on the threads.
There are far too many anecdotes which support this hypothesis. My wife's all-time favorite album is Supertramp's Crime of the Century. When I play it through an Yggy, she cries. When I play it through a good DS, she does not. She has no dogs in any fight and could care less what she is listening to. There are more than a few other anecdotes mentioning friends or girlfriends/wives asking the DAC owner what he did to the system to make the system improvement. Before I get refried by the Ssers, I know this is a narrative construct. I have no proof. But I am building my own custom test fixtures to try to measure those differences. This is not to say that I discount science – I absolutely do not. I believe that if there is a perceived difference, then there must be a difference to measure. I am just not arrogant enough to believe that we have learned everything required to measure all audible differences.
I am not a fan of Sound Science by experience. They remind me of Bertrand Russell, who I quote: “One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.” Seriously, read their posts. It appears to me their sense of mission and importance precludes any pleasure this hobby may bring. They must expose all evil electronic audio equipment makers with an ABX test.
The subjects of every ABX test I have ever witnessed looked, stressed, serious, and constipated. Under those testing circumstances, I can easily understand why they cannot differentiate between the emotions of “What is this thing called love?”, and “Songs on the “Death of Children”. After all, a stoic's report of what a feeling man says can never be right, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. If they only knew. Perhaps they listen only to audio books.
