Here I sit with a mission to pound a few keys – it has been some time since I have contributed anything here. About time! As I sit here we have a rainstorm headed our way within hours which our dirt road can use to de-washboard from too much use with no moisture. I have been reviewing schematics for much of today – some of them proper to the transport (a USB out section), and two boards for that project which can not be mentioned. I do not mention the Sol because it is in production – well, all of the parts are ordered! As far as the transport goes, I am listening to a Brahms Symphony No. 2 by David Zinman with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. I was given a huge boxset of his Beethoven/Brahms/Mahler/Schumann/Strauss output and so far find it uneven but very interesting at its best. The Beethoven Triple Concerto still plays in my mind. My much larger experience has been the Da Ponte Mozart Operas by an orchestra and conductor who were strangers to me. Teodor Currentzis/Musicaeterna. Huh? Normally these are light operas I listen to much as I would listen to Bluegrass, although there are moments of sublime beauty in all three operas. I was unfamiliar with most of the singers; expected little really until last night became this morning at 5AM when I glanced at the clock after compulsively playing all three operas sequentially with nothing but bathroom breaks. I am unexpectedly very impressed; this sort of lighter music never commands so much of my attention. It was as if all light was sucked out of the room with only music and emotion remaining. The recordings are also stunning. Of the three, my fave is still Figaro, but I had never experienced Cosi Fan Tutte nor Don Giovanni before last night, be it live or memorex. This is anywhere from LA to the Met to Vienna live and competing against 30 or so recordings from the twenties to the 2000s. I do have to play them again just to make sure they are the triumphs I suspect they may be. I just ordered his Mahler 6. Chalk up another fine recommendation from Presto Music in London. This Da Ponte cycle is difficult to find here. Presto is my preferred classical music pimp.
I hope you will forgive my sinking into an editorial which has come very much to mind as a result of the La Ponte cycle. I frequently read lamentations of a missed or improper pairing of audio components. Such an event then triggers the suspected need of another component to “match the tuning” for optimum pairing. Users will wonder how the engineer “tuned” or adjusted the sound. I have no idea how to reconcile this mentally. Is one system Van Gogh or Klimt? Van Gogh on Tuesday and Thursday? Seafood/White one day and Lamb/Riojo the next? You really think I am an artist? Really? Watch me ballet or hear me sing and then tell me that is still so. I am a spectator of art. I go to music, concerts, plays and museums. I suck up the experience of art created by others. As an audio engineer, it is my job to facilitate the recreation of precisely that, not to paint it pastel, bright or dull colors. It is my job to then experience the art of others, then endeavor to make a bit of audio gear which takes that art and passes its experience on. If the music is ecstatic, the listener should experience precisely that. And so on. I neither wrote nor conducted the music. Just because I did not create the music does not dictate that I cannot recreate it or pass it on to others.
As a show director, I read a play and recreate the experience, music (if present), and emotions. If the play is sad, I have done well if there is not a dry eye in the house at the end. If the play is dark, the audience should be poleaxed at the end. Again, I am a communicator or re-creator, not an artist.
I learned this from Peter Walker, my hero and audio mentor, founder of the Acoustical Manufacturing Co. Ltd., and inventor of the Quad Electrostatic Loudspeaker. I first met him at a bar in the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago at a 1975 CES. These were the days when Saul Marantz would be hanging out there, some 3 or 4 years before the Las Vegas CES shows started. At the time, (and still to this day) I had a pair of Quad ESL speakers. Being introduced to him was my wildest dream. His advice was to recreate, not create which sticks with me yet today. Years later, when I began to direct shows, I applied the same advice. Funny how that works.
There are too many engineers who pose as artists in building an audio component. This in turn fosters expectations of audio components as art. Now some may say, yes, but Saul Marantz was a horn player. True as it was, all that meant was that he knew what a *** horn sounded like. Others may argue this is a dated view, as much modern “music” is assembled from a series of recordings which never existed in the real world, such as autotuned voices, synthesized tracks, etc. In other words, much of modern music is reduced to a non empirical, arbitrary construct. There are no clear objective rules on how to recreate constructs. It is completely subjective. This begs an artistic component to compliment the favorites of the engineer. This is quite different from music which existed as an event, but more on that in a bit.
This means that there is an increasing need for “tuning” or “engineering art” as musical events degrade to constructs. My purpose here is not to criticize much of modern music, but to explain the rise of this notion of the engineer to add art to recordings which beg for subjective analysis. More and more reviewers subscribe to this absurd belief. It is becoming ever more prevalent.
A point I have not sufficiently developed is that emotion is a component of musical events. I argue that a component designed to reproduce musical events as objectively as possible (a la Peter Walker) better conveys the emotion of the original event. That is exactly why I listen to music. That is exactly why I attend so many musical events. I note that those who best appreciate our multibit digital gear are those who regularly attend musical events. So that is my goal. I argue for reproduction. Emotional satisfaction. Happiness. Diversion.
But what if your listening time is largely spent with autotuned pop music, or other arbitrary melodic constructs with beat such as techno. This may be a case when you are better off trusting some other designer to take artistic license. Some of this contact may benefit from “detail”, “black background”, “warm sound”, “bottom end slam”, or whatever else. But what happens when you play the next item from your list? Do you need another “tuning”? How many DACs? How many amps to get the combination for what you want for that “tuning”. Nope, I suck at being an artist. If you ever see me at an audio show sporting a beret, call an ambulance. That’s precisely why I concentrate on reproduction of musical events. Easier for this old guy and still gives me what I need. Yup, for reproduction of musical events, multibit rules!
As a closing, I have returned to the Zinman box. As I recall, I spent 80 bucks for thia long box which included, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Schubert and Mahler Symphony Cycles, Beethoven Piano, Violin, Triple Concerti, Overtures, Misa Solemnis, Strauss Tone Poems, and a few diverse selections from Haydn and Wagner. I am now well into the Mahler Cycle which I find curiously odd, as the tempi are on the quick side, yet it is obvious he is not just a beat counter like Toscanini; subtleties in orchestral phrasing are raised in pleasant context. It was a great way to get rid of eighty bucks. On Friday night I will revisit the Da Ponte Cycle. And yes, multibit still rules for Zinman!
