How Science Got Sound Wrong

Moops you’re always funny, I don’t care what anybody says. You’re almost ready for standup.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but calling names just shows your bias (and is a bit childish).

I have heard great turntables. I have heard great turntables sound great. I have heard great turntables "stumble" ... or maybe it was the pressing?  I have heard them "color" the sound.  That is completely okay. Some people's favourite color is blue. Some people's favourite color is red. No matter how much anyone screams, blue light will be shorter wavelength that red.


I never made an anti-LP argument, I just pointed out the many ways that LPs are not and cannot be accurate. I do that when someone claims technical superiority of vinyl. If you want to say it sounds better to you, I have no issues with that. There is a cross-section of the population that prefer the sound.  If you want to claim it has technical merits it does not possess, then I am going to call that out. That is not being biased, that is being honest.


I listen to a lot of live music, both amplified and not. I like live music, warts and all. I like music recorded in a studio too, which is most. I don't find vinyl brings me any closer to some "live" nirvana.  I am not oblivious to vinyl mixes often being better, but I don't say that is because of "vinyl", it is because of mixing.

cleeds2,610 posts12-06-2019 9:18amIt’s clear where you’re coming from - you’re a measurmentalist. You are so absorbed and infatuated with numbers and graphs that should you listen to even an extraordinarily outstanding turntable system, your profound confirmation bias would prevent you from enjoying the sound. For you, LP will always be a pig.

That’s a fine preference to have, by the way, and you have a lot of good company! But I’m glad that I can enjoy music from a variety of sources.

Your anti-LP argument is filled with illogic, btw, but no matter. A preference is just that - it doesn’t require any elaborate explanation to justify it.

atdavid

I never made an anti-LP argument ...

I understand that you really believe that. It’s your measurementalist bias on display to the extent that even when it’s explained to you, you can’t see it. That’s ok; that’s how profound bias sometimes works. No one should interpret it as offensive.

I just pointed out the many ways that LPs are not and cannot be accurate ...

Exactly! Have a nice day.

And I shall hereby dub you "DetachmentFromRealityist".  If you want to use childish names, lets go all in.

This notion that we cannot measure electrical signals with enough detail to match human human is false. It is not a supportable position. To that end, if you like the way that a turntable and the whole vinyl process modifies what started as an electrical signal in a measurable way, there is nothing wrong with that. Just don't call it accurate, as it is not.

cleeds2,611 posts12-06-2019 5:18pmI understand that you really believe that. It’s your measurementalist bias on display to the extent that even when it’s explained to you, you can’t see it. That’s ok; that’s how profound bias sometimes works. No one should interpret it as offensive.

A phenomenological experience (like hearing a sound or seeing a rainbow) cannot be reduced to measurements of any number, now and for eternity...


Measurements help  to design something, be it a theory or an apparatus, an invention  and are necessary for that...I dont understand how measurements alone can explain anything at all...It takes some new concepts if we want to understand something, amd way more than new concepts, it takes the living phenomenological experience also...


I dont say and will not say anything about vinyl or digital audio , for me they are always different, or better said, always existing in an embedding context in specific implementation and they are of different nature and complementary... 

Saying that, I cannot accept that by measuring something with some limited  actual theory, we can deny not only this radical difference, but also the phenomenological experience that is lived by each one of us differently...

 It is evidence that digitalization is necessary and useful, and that vinyl and analog process are also necessary and of some different nature for their effects...I know that no one contest that also... But the frontier and limits that differentiate these 2 process in audio engineering is not perfectly always clear for all of us user and even designer...And it is the same thing for their effect in the human hearing  brain... I apologize for my rant...I like perhaps too much speaking...:)