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Does it bother you?

I'm a recording engineer who has worked in some of the world's top facilities. Let me walk you though an example signal path that you might find in a place like, say, Henson Studio A:

1. Microphone: Old. Probably a PCB inside. Copper wiring.
2. Mic cable: Constructed in house with $1/ft Canare Star Quad, solder, and a connector that might have been in the bottom of a box in the back.
3. Wall jack: Just a regular old Neutrik XLR connector on the wall.
4. Cable snake: Bundles of mic cables going to the control room.
5. Another XLR jack.
6. Another cheap mic cable.
7. Mic preamp: Old and lovely sounding. Audio going through 50 year old pots.
8. Patchbay: Another cheap copper cable is soldered into a patchbay where hundreds of connectors practically touch.
9. TT Cable: Goes from one patch to the next in the patch bay. Copper. No brand preference.
10. DB25 connector: Yes, the same connector you used to connect a modem to your computer in 1986. This is the heart and soul of studio audio transfer.
11. DB25 cable to the console: 25 strands of razor-thin copper wire, 8 channels of audio, sharing a ride.
12. The mixing console: PCB after PCB of tiny copper paths carry the audio through countless op amp chips.
13. DB25 cable to the recording device: time to travel through two more DB25 connectors as we make our way to the AD converters or tape machine.
14. AD conversion: More op amp chips.
15. Digital cable: nothing fancy, just whatever works. USB and Firewire cables are just stock.

...and this is just getting the audio into the recorder.

Also:

None of this equipment has vibration reducing rubber feet, it's just stacked haphazardly in racks. Touching.

No fancy power cables are used, just regular ol' IEC cables.

Acoustic treatment is done using scientific measurements.

Words like "soundstage" and "pace" are never uttered.

Does it bother you? Do you find it strange that the people who record the music that you listen to aren't interested in "tweaks," and expensive cables, and alarm clocks with a sticker on them? If we're not using any of this stuff to record the albums, then what are you hearing when you do use it?
trentpancakes
brucest
6 posts
 
I recently visited a local recording studio with fine equipment. But the recording techniques still gave me pause. Individual (pop recording) instruments were recorded with two mikes, but not to create stereo localization but rather to pick up some natural reverb. (Which is fine.) Thus any sound stage effects are the result of mixing.

This puts a bit of a kabosh on what had been my touchstone for audio: accuracy. I can't know what sound stage effects are inherent in any vinyl or CD rendition. Therefore I can't judge accuracy of reproduction by listening. I think the same logic applies to frequency balance.

Further, to add fuel to the fire, I read in some high end sites and magazines about outstanding spacial and sound effects that I never hear in live performances whether orchestral, chamber music, or pop group. Rather than pinpoint localization of instruments in space, I hear more of a blend with significant directionality. That is very much like what I hear on my speakers. So what is it that those guys are hearing?

So it seems impossible to determine what sound illusions (stereo images are of course an illusion)are more accurate. Just what you like.

Are we reduced to looking at measurements and calling the relative absence of distortion and coloration "accuracy"? I think so.
schubert
7,386 posts
 
Any kind of popular music is a business, 98% of the people who buy it have zero concept of what sounds good or doesn't.
Why waste the money on good gear ?
trentpancakes OP
13 posts
 
This is just half of the signal path, and for one channel. Now imagine this happening across 24 tracks, and including the playback signal path through various stacks of effects units. No vibration damping on a single one of them! Every vacuum tube (and there are lots) without a single damper ring on them.

It's likely that the audio you hear on a full-band production has passed through a DB25 port thousands of times in total before reaching the mastering stage. And the vinyl that it was pressed to, every single one of those masters were made on a direct-drive servo lathe with an aluminum platter, with a similar signal path to the ones I described above.

I just can't understand, in the quest for pure playback, it's always "I could hear deeper into the soundstage" and "highs seemed to lift into the air and trickle down" and "timing and pace were more brisk(??)"

..instead of..

"I could hear more of the rumble of the cutting lathe" and "a pronounced 50hz hum from the recording console became apparent" and "an air conditioning unit in the studio ticked annoyingly in the background."

How is it you're only able to hear this amazing stuff that we never heard when you buy more equipment?
trentpancakes OP
13 posts
 
Robsker, the reason why those recordings sound better is because the musicians playing the music were better. It's that simple. In the recording world, it's all about performance over equipment. You want to catch lightning in a bottle, and these old recordings did it.

There was nothing magical about the recording process. In fact, the equipment, by today's standards, was fairly poor. And just going by pure specs it was a nightmare. THD, wow and flutter... these things were off the charts.

I'd rather catch a breathtaking performance on a Tascam cassette 4-track, than a lifeless take through a Lynx AD converter.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,182 posts
 
Well, I'm sure there are good recording studios, production companies and engineers and not so good ones. The variations of sound quality I hear recording to recording help confirm that.

For me, its a reasonable audiophile goal for their system to reveal all the variations present recording to recording. Forget about "The Absolute Sound", though it might pop up on occasion with certain recordings if you are in a good place home audio sound wise.

Recordings are what they are. Audiophiles that seek to make a recording into something that it is not are unfortunately doomed, for the most part, since they also poo poo any form of sound processing, digital or otherwise. Audiophiles that can appreciate each recording as a unique work of art will probably be happier. If it takes a clock with a sticker on to achieve that, well......
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