wht is the difference between good and bad sound ?

hi redkiwi:

suppose someone likes what you call bad sound, either a) because someone else's brain can hear thru the dense wall of sound or b) likes the sound that you describe as bad sound.

in that case we are back to square one, which is one man's bad sound is another's good sound.

now back to the toyota. if a toyota is not a bad car, how can there be a bad toyota. doi you mean a toyota that needs repair frequently , or something else ??

Within the scope of subjective preferences, there are still qualities that could be universally accepted as bad. For instance, one could argue that odd order and IM distortion are bad although the significant amounts of even order distortion that tube equipment adds might be subjectively desirable. Jitter is always bad because there's no form of jitter that is musically satisfying. Huge, peaky resonances are also bad although small resonances are unavoidable and can be largely ignored.

I think the subjective aspect of Audio enters because it is impossible to acheive perfection. There's no such thing as a perfect listening room or perfect components. Different people balance the imperfect elements in ways that minimize the imperfections based on their own experiences, auditory systems and musical preferences.

Adding to the subjective nature of this persuit, recordings are made without any kind of absolute reference for the type of playback system that will be used. The recording engineer tries to balance the imperfections of his equipment, acoustics and artistic intent with what he thinks the typical system will reproduce.

hi jlambrick:

when you decribe certain phenomena as bad, isn't that an arbitrary standard. suppose someone like bright sound, or likes the effect of jitter. maybe you and i don't but you can't have it both ways.

if its all subjective--jitter, harmonic distortion, frequency response imbalances, sound is only bad when someone doesn't like it.

if there are standards, they are not absolute. the fact that many agree with them merely denotes popularity which is subjective.

until you are in a quantitative mode, such athletics, where faster can be construed to be better than slower, universal acceptance, as you say neither conotes good or baad.

again logic dictates deduction and if you have a postulate from which you draw a conclusion, i can posit another postulate.

the concept of good and bad as applied to any endeavor of life is philosophical. there is not definitive answer. it is just an exchange of ideas.

i happen to agree with you regarding harmonic ditortion, but i have heard evidence of jitter which has sounded pleasant to me.

I've never heard of anyone liking the sound of jitter or odd harmonic distortion. These seem to be universally accepted forms of 'bad' distortion. What type of jitter have you found to be pleasant?

years ago i became a member of the bmg music club.

i compared cds issued to the club to commercially available cds on the dgg label. these were classical cds. i noticed a difference between the sound of the cds.

in a nutshell, i would describe the diffference as a loss of detail or veiling for the cds from the club as compared to those commercially available.

these facts were reported to bob katz, a recording engineer at chesky records.

he did some research and concluded that the club cds had more jitter than the commercially available cds.

i found the losss of detail on the club cds a benefit, making the sound more pleasant than that of the commercially available cds.