Mastering legend Bernie Grundman explains why the measurement crowd has it all wrong!


There's a great new interview with Bernie Grundman about the AJA UHQR where he relates that a component that a measures perfectly, but uses a lot of electronics in the signal path to get that result, sounds inferior to electronics that don't even measure flat, but have less in the pathway.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGLFTm6jMrY

I recently read one of these "reviews'' where they admit they mostly don't even listen, but just rely on measurements.  It was one of the most amateur reviews I had ever read, and now the we have one of the top trusted golden ears (one who actually creates the content) state that measurements don't indicate what something is going to sound like.

I'll take Bernie's perspective over an idiot with an analyzer touting cheap gear that measures well, just to make people feel superior about their (sometimes) midfi gear.

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“Interesting. Does the measuring device hear the same as you or I do? Do you and I hear the same? What if you have lost some hearing and still think you hear accurately?

You can measure an audio signal accurately, but accuracy of the music cannot be measured. We can try to hear it and decide. It depends on what the listener perceives as accurate to them. And you are right about audio signal.”

 

If we are talking about electrical measurements of an audio signal it can be measured with precise accuracy down to the molecular thermal noise. If we are talking about measuring sound with microphones it becomes a bit more complicated but with modern techniques we can get very accurate measurements. I’m not sure how one would even ask the question of human hearing and perception. Audio recording and playback exists in service of human perception. If you are asking if human hearing is accurate in comparison to a test microphone and digital recorder the answer would be no. We have limited bandwidth, limited dynamic range and frequency response that looks like a roller coaster. But that is what our ears receive and what our brains process and turn into aural perception. 
 

I honestly have no idea what “accuracy of the music” means. We can measure a dip signals with accuracy that goes way beyond human thresholds of hearing. We can measure acoustic sound with a great deal of accuracy. We can, based on the right measurements predict the objective performance of a stereo system. But we can’t tell someone how they will respond to what they hear quite as reliably. As for humans being able to hear things that can’t be objectively measured that is a myth. If a human can hear it it can be measured. 

Measurements aren't taken in the real world and the way the equipment is used, it's usually taken in isolation, not the system as a whole with music.

Qualia can be reproduced yes with any accuracy levels , they cannot be interpreted and perceived as meanings without a brain/consciousness...

Music is not sound... Music is sound+meanings...

This fact escape the objectivist crowd as escape the subjectivist crowd that audio is not based on mere arbitrary  taste but on psycho-acoustics multi-disciplinaries understandings with multiple concepts and many kind of measures ...

 

There is no singular place in the brain where is stored musical memory , it is distributed on many levels and many location zones all connected in the brain ...

The brain dont create consciousness but it is like a radio receiver it tune consciouness and the ground of meanings which come from a non located universal memory ... The brain dont create meanings no more than the prime numbers distribution is created and existed because of the brain ... The prime numbers distribution is a non conventional object existing absolutely, it is discovered as when we discovered a new sun or a new galaxy ...We create as human species the symbolic form associated with a numerical basis, ten or the basis 60 or 20 or two etc yes , this is relative choices ... But the prime numbers cannot be understood as a relative conventional objects as with a numerical basis ... They are highly specified infinite non conventional object... Any spirit, angels or extra terestrials , even God, know them as their own "body" ... They are ultimately music and rythm in a non commutative space as described by mathematician Alain Connes ...The founder of non commutative geometry ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr60YwJrPa0

And as claimed by the mathematician Shai Haran in his astounding book " the real prime" , P-adic numbers based on primes are more natural and more fundamental than real numbers ...

You cannot put primes aside no more than you can put God in a bag ... 😁

 

If that is what he is saying then he is simply incorrect.

Bernie Grundman’s knowledge, experience, and expertise speaks for itself. If you want to challenge that, you’ll need to do a whole lot better than "he is simply incorrect" because there is a mountain of evidence that he’s not.

I honestly have no idea what “accuracy of the music” means.

That’s one of the differences between you and Bernie.