rbyington711,
I get where you’re coming from but personally I think the camera and recording studio analogy works a bit better. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s the microphones and lenses that do the vital capturing work?
Maybe a loudspeaker is more like the monitor you might use to later view the captured image.
Couldn't a poor loudspeaker be likened to a poorly calibrated monitor, introducing far more serious distortions than anything else in the chain?
Come to think of it, even a good loudspeaker will do that, just far less obviously.
Unfortunately recorded audio, existing in a circle of confusion without any established standards or reference points, does not yet have the equivalent of an international colour chart as used in photography (or film/TV).
So loudspeaker playback can only be an approximated guess at what was put down on tape, unlike a well calibrated monitor which can accurately reproduce what was captured on film.
Going further, maybe the captured image should be likened to the finished recording. Once it’s finished, very little can be done to improve it. For sure scratches and dropouts can be repaired the same way Photoshop etc can repair damaged prints but nothing can improve the captured resolution.
You know when you mentioned a $2000 lens I recalled a glossy black and white photograph taken of my sister at school back in the mid 1970s.
We still have this photo and to this day it remains amazingly sharp. None of the many many photographs since have come as close to that one for sheer image precision. It’s almost uncannily detailed and sharp.
Unless I ask her, and unless she remembers, I’m going to assume that it must have been an excellent camera placed on a tripod!
Or maybe the photographer just got lucky. Could happen!?
I can’t help you with the Marantz issue except to say that my experiences with Marantz (1 amp and 2 CD players) has shown them to be unusually reliable products. The only fault was with the CD remote control which needed cleaning and reassembly after many many years.
http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/10/audios-circle-of-confusion.html?m=1
I get where you’re coming from but personally I think the camera and recording studio analogy works a bit better. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s the microphones and lenses that do the vital capturing work?
Maybe a loudspeaker is more like the monitor you might use to later view the captured image.
Couldn't a poor loudspeaker be likened to a poorly calibrated monitor, introducing far more serious distortions than anything else in the chain?
Come to think of it, even a good loudspeaker will do that, just far less obviously.
Unfortunately recorded audio, existing in a circle of confusion without any established standards or reference points, does not yet have the equivalent of an international colour chart as used in photography (or film/TV).
So loudspeaker playback can only be an approximated guess at what was put down on tape, unlike a well calibrated monitor which can accurately reproduce what was captured on film.
Going further, maybe the captured image should be likened to the finished recording. Once it’s finished, very little can be done to improve it. For sure scratches and dropouts can be repaired the same way Photoshop etc can repair damaged prints but nothing can improve the captured resolution.
You know when you mentioned a $2000 lens I recalled a glossy black and white photograph taken of my sister at school back in the mid 1970s.
We still have this photo and to this day it remains amazingly sharp. None of the many many photographs since have come as close to that one for sheer image precision. It’s almost uncannily detailed and sharp.
Unless I ask her, and unless she remembers, I’m going to assume that it must have been an excellent camera placed on a tripod!
Or maybe the photographer just got lucky. Could happen!?
I can’t help you with the Marantz issue except to say that my experiences with Marantz (1 amp and 2 CD players) has shown them to be unusually reliable products. The only fault was with the CD remote control which needed cleaning and reassembly after many many years.
http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/10/audios-circle-of-confusion.html?m=1