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From: ben@moncol.UUCP (Bennett Broder)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: Digiphobes
Message-ID: <350@moncol.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Jun-85 15:18:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: moncol.350
Posted: Mon Jun  3 15:18:12 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Jun-85 20:58:31 EDT
References: <2412@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Monmouth College, West Long Branch, NJ 07764
Lines: 36

>When I listen to a recording, what I listen for is not the quality of the audio
>but the quality of the music. In terms of audio quality, my only concern is
>that anything that will distract from the music be minimized.  This includes
>things like pops, skips, sticking, and hiss.  This does not include subtle
>aberrations in frequency response at 22K Hz, or imperfect imaging.  Speaking of
>imaging, I don't care about my system sounding exactly like a concert hall -
>it is the music and its performance, not the circumstances of the performance
>that are relevant to me.  You Golden Ears may say, "Ah, but subtle aberrations
>in frequency response at 22K Hz *do* distract me from the music".  Well, then, 
>I feel sorry for you for letting such things ruin your enjoyment of perfectly
>fine performances of perfectly fine music, and I hope I never develop Golden
>Ears.

The way I see it, there are two different ways that a recording can
fall short of the true musical event.  One is by addition such as
surface noise, pops and ticks on record albums and hiss on compact
discs and magnetic tapes.  The second is by loss of information,
most notably the subtle psycoacoustic cues that allow
us to perceive a realistic soundstage when listening to two little
boxes.  Error by addition is annoying, but the brain can do much to
ignore these imperfections, much as it learns to ignore the man three
rows behind us in a concert with persistant sniffles and the fidgety
kid playing with his seat a couple chairs down.  But loss of
information is harder to deal with.  I just can't get the same level
of musical enjoyment from a recording that sounds like it is coming
from a flat plane on the wall or from two little boxes.  And this
applies equally to bad LPs and bad CDs.  No, frequency response
abberations at 22k hz don't bother me (particularly with CDs; they
have a brick wall at 20k hz), but the lack of a realistic soundstage
does.  And I submit that if imaging means *nothing* to you, you are
missing much of the pleasure of listening to high fi.

Ben Broder
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