Learsfool wrote:
"You posted that you want to hear as close as possible to what is heard in the recording studio. My point about the actual recording studios is that you would NEVER want to do this. Recording studios are not designed for listening to music - they are extremely dead, with none of the reverberance or other positive sound characteristics of an actual live music venue."
Yes, I am aware that recording studios are extremely dead, having spent some time in them (not as the artist, but as the recording engineer. No, I do not do this for a living).
My point was not that I want to hear what it sounded like in the acoustically dead studio recording room with the musician. Nor do I want to hear what it sounded like in the control booth, recording that musician. I want to hear what it sounded like in the mastering stage/suite/room, when the music is fully mixed (i.e., level adjusted, channel placed, EQ'd, reverbed, etc.).
I know that, often, the artists themselves have little say over what they sound like (hence my joke about the studio executive's child having "notes" for the recording engineer). This is true of rock and pop music more than any other genre, but I have no doubt that similarly depressing realities affect many other types of recordings. But these facts about the recording industry do not mean we cannot strive to build an audio system that faithfully reproduces, to the extent that is possible, what was heard IN THE FINAL MIX.
Newbee wrote:
"But in my view 'neutrality' really doesn't and cannot exist because it is a term like life or death, neutrality is an absolute thing. There is no room for equivication. It is either neutral or it isn't. Like being pregnant! No halfway measures."
I have a hard time understanding this point of view. 'Neutrality,' in the way we've been discussing it, is a way of talking about freedom from coloration. Is that really an all or nothing thing? Can we not agree that, however different our systems may sound from one another, they are all less colored than a boombox? And isn't admitting those kinds of comparisons an acknowledgement that neutrality is a matter of degree? I believe that neutrality is a continuum, like virtually ever other measure of quality in audio, whether objective or subjective.
"You posted that you want to hear as close as possible to what is heard in the recording studio. My point about the actual recording studios is that you would NEVER want to do this. Recording studios are not designed for listening to music - they are extremely dead, with none of the reverberance or other positive sound characteristics of an actual live music venue."
Yes, I am aware that recording studios are extremely dead, having spent some time in them (not as the artist, but as the recording engineer. No, I do not do this for a living).
My point was not that I want to hear what it sounded like in the acoustically dead studio recording room with the musician. Nor do I want to hear what it sounded like in the control booth, recording that musician. I want to hear what it sounded like in the mastering stage/suite/room, when the music is fully mixed (i.e., level adjusted, channel placed, EQ'd, reverbed, etc.).
I know that, often, the artists themselves have little say over what they sound like (hence my joke about the studio executive's child having "notes" for the recording engineer). This is true of rock and pop music more than any other genre, but I have no doubt that similarly depressing realities affect many other types of recordings. But these facts about the recording industry do not mean we cannot strive to build an audio system that faithfully reproduces, to the extent that is possible, what was heard IN THE FINAL MIX.
Newbee wrote:
"But in my view 'neutrality' really doesn't and cannot exist because it is a term like life or death, neutrality is an absolute thing. There is no room for equivication. It is either neutral or it isn't. Like being pregnant! No halfway measures."
I have a hard time understanding this point of view. 'Neutrality,' in the way we've been discussing it, is a way of talking about freedom from coloration. Is that really an all or nothing thing? Can we not agree that, however different our systems may sound from one another, they are all less colored than a boombox? And isn't admitting those kinds of comparisons an acknowledgement that neutrality is a matter of degree? I believe that neutrality is a continuum, like virtually ever other measure of quality in audio, whether objective or subjective.