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From: greg@olivee.UUCP (Greg Paley)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Spring cleaning Preamps (actually CD vs LP)
Message-ID: <372@olivee.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Jun-85 13:35:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: olivee.372
Posted: Mon Jun  3 13:35:48 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Jun-85 20:01:06 EDT
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Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
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Response to Phil Karn's article:

> 
> a) Those who have plunked thousands of dollars into "high end" analog
> playback systems. (ihuxl!messina beat me to this one). People are naturally
> reluctant to admit such mistakes to themselves, and persist in face-saving
> attempts to rationalize and justify their decisions.
> 

There is no good reason for hating CD's just because you've spent a lot of
money on good analogue gear.  I have and enjoy a CD player and, now, a number
of CD's, yet I would still buy a good analogue turntable and cartridge if
I had the money now.  Why?  Because I have over 2000 analogue LP's, most
of which are in excellent shape and have a great deal of musical enjoyment
to offer.  Many of them are not now, or likely to be in the future, available
on CD and, even if they were made available, would cost far more than the
high quality turntable and cartridge to replace in that format.

> b) Those who simly delude themselves through ppseudo-scientific arguments
> based on a misunderstanding of well-established theory.
> 
> Both groups share something that is the touchstone of pseudoscience: the
> refusal to use objective measurements and to properly control comparative
> experiments.
> 

There are those who fit that description but there are others who have
made a valid point in questioning current measurement techniques.  These
people do not refuse to acknowledge objective measurements, but are
convinced that there are significant, measureable factors in sound 
reproduction which are not adequately measured by current methods and
equipment.

> Can somebody PLEASE tell me what the terms "imaging" and "dimensionality"
> are supposed to mean? Or are they used because they're deliberately vague?
> 

I don't think people are being deliberately vague.  The difficulty is
that of trying to describe the perceptions of one sense (in this case,
hearing) in terms of other senses (visual), using a medium (words) which
is yet different.  Since I like words and attempts to bridge these gaps
I'll have a shot at defining these:

"Imaging" is the ability of recordings and sound reproduction equipment
to create a sound in which those objects (instruments, voices, etc.) 
being reproduced appear to emanate from a fixed location in space.  In
stereo recordings, those considered to present the best "imaging" are
those from which a listener could determine within a very narrow tolerance
precisely where in the room each instrument or voice is placed.

"Dimensionality" is closely related to imaging in that it normally refers
to the reproduction of the space between individual objects on a recording.
The term is particularly used to describe the ability (or lack of ability)
to hear instruments reproduced with some being closer to the listener,
others being further back behind those.  This relates to imaging in that
the more precisely you can fix the location of individual instruments, the
more precisely you can sense the space between them.

	- Greg Paley