Capturing the MUSIC; a furtive cause? What R We...

...missing when we listen to recorded music in our homes?

There's been a lot of talk lately -- and not so lately -- about the empirical (listening) vs. the scientific (measurable) EFFECTS regarding a number of things not least of which is changing the connecting wires in a reproduction network.

Rather than regurgitate the whole gamut of conflicting argumentation bandied around, I thought I'd just provide a link to an interesting reproduction (sorry for the pun) of a seminar by J. Boyk* at Caltech: "Capturing Music: The Impossible Task".

It's a short and interesting read.

For those who have already read this, pls excuse the redundancy in favour of those that haven't.

In this abstract Boyk touches on MUSIC, the difficult task of recording & reproducing music correctly --i.e. as the musician intended it to be heard -- and the diffulties inherent in trying to gauge or measure "QUALITY" of the recording & reproducing equipment.

Many interesting points made. Rather than expand further & waste server space, I'll just reproduce (that word again!) a nice little paragraph from the abstract:

A ...friend ...won the Westinghouse Science Talent Search in high school with his work on hearing; and continued in the field through a doctorate and professorship; but now works on vision. "Why the change?" I asked. "Listen!" he said, "In vision, at least we know what the questions are!"

I'd be interested in any comments &/or feedback. Cheers!

*Mr Boyk is a pianist, a lecturer at Caltech, and also does consulting work in related fields. He studied Maths.