Topic: Poll: What, if anything, divides headphiles and audiophiles? (Read 6243 times)

funkmeister · « **Reply #30 on:** September 20, 2013, 09:38:20 PM »

@DaveBSC, you know, you're right. They did get it right during the CD's first decade. I wonder how the job role was once effective then later turned into what I saw and described.

There is something to that time period. I've got recordings from the 90's that were clearly of their time because they've got some clipping while still being nicely dynamic. The odd thing is that I never noticed until I got quality listening gear. It makes me wonder what it was like in the studio.

You do need to wonder what some teenager's reaction would be to a properly dynamic recording when they're so not familiar with it. It would definitely be harder to listen to in a car or on the street.

Maxvla · « **Reply #31 on:** September 20, 2013, 11:21:50 PM »

All of the above. The points about speaker rigs not being as expensive by contrast to high end headphone setups have mostly ignored the room. Unless you purpose built you room (a significant cost on its own) you have to concede that you are starting out with a very flawed canvas. Trying to fix a flawed canvas ends up being rather expensive as well.

In the end, most of the gear is interchangable. Same sources, same transports, same interconnects, trade high end headamp for high end speaker amp. Speaker and headphone cables and the actual radiators themselves are the only real differences in gear. Where headphone rigs pull way ahead in cost is by providing its own room.

There needs to be a solution to the venue dilemma. If you mix for speakers, it sounds less good on headphones, if you mix for radio/iTunes mass consumption, you have to build in the compression, if you mix for quality, you can't listen easily in the car or anywhere there is noise (restaurant, etc), if you mix for headphones, it should ideally be from a binaural master, which doesn't sound great on speakers.

It's as if we need several different versions of the song stored on our media to play when we are needing different things. Perhaps this will be possible as capacity continues to grow. Another possibility is taking the highest quality master and baking in dsp in products that know what they are. Such as a car stereo would process the master and normalize the volume, or a headphone output would first be dsp'd to sound binaural. Or perhaps there would still exist the need to have a speaker master and a headphone master, then let the device dsp the normalization if appropriate.

The problem with all of these solutions is they require extra work by everyone involved, and 'all' we, the general public, get is better sound quality, something society has already demonstrated they don't care enough about to pay extra for.

DaveBSC · « **Reply #32 on:** September 20, 2013, 11:33:36 PM »

Quote from: funkmeister on September 20, 2013, 09:38:20 PM

@DaveBSC, you know, you're right. They did get it right during the CD's first decade. I wonder how the job role was once effective then later turned into what I saw and described.

There is something to that time period. I've got recordings from the 90's that were clearly of their time because they've got some clipping while still being nicely dynamic. The odd thing is that I never noticed until I got quality listening gear. It makes me wonder what it was like in the studio.

You do need to wonder what some teenager's reaction would be to a properly dynamic recording when they're so not familiar with it. It would definitely be harder to listen to in a car or on the street.

Yep. IMO the best mainstream CDs are from the early '90s. A-D converters had improved quite a bit compared to what was available in the '80s, so transferring from analog master tapes to digital didn't require as many sacrifices in sound, and the loudness war hadn't really started yet. Pearl Jam's Ten on CD was DR10. By 1996 and No Code, they were down to DR7 overall, with several tracks at DR5. That's basically where we still are, even the HDTracks version of Ten is DR6 poop, while the vinyl redux was DR11. Thankfully vinyl has managed to stay out of the war.

Most studies have shown that when people are exposed to more dynamic music, they prefer it. I hear that argument a lot, that you need to compress the hell out of music so it sounds good on a car stereo or crappy iPod earbuds. It's a bullshit argument, always has been. The only thing you have to do with a dynamic record is turn it up a bit. That's all. Level match and you get something like this. The only thing the loud version does is smash all of the life out of the music.

DaveBSC · « **Reply #33 on:** September 20, 2013, 11:36:15 PM »

Quote from: Maxvla on September 20, 2013, 11:21:50 PM

if you mix for quality, you can't listen easily in the car or anywhere there is noise (restaurant, etc),

Bullshit. Slayer albums used to be DR14. Nobody complained that they couldn't hear them in the car.

Maxvla · « **Reply #34 on:** September 20, 2013, 11:43:44 PM »

So, Dave, you listen to non-normalized classical while on the highway?

I thought not. In order to hear the quiet passages, you have it turned up enough to blow your ears off when there's a sudden dynamic peak. You are constantly messing with the volume. This can easily happen with other genres like folk, jazz, among others. Some genres are so stereotypically normalized, you can't easily imagine what they would sound like uncompressed. Pop and rock would actually be hard to listen to in a car if it wasn't smashed to hell. Not as hard as classical, for sure, but there are often quiet parts of these songs that would be too low to hear with a high noise floor in effect.

Maxvla · « **Reply #35 on:** September 20, 2013, 11:45:56 PM »

Quote from: DaveBSC on September 20, 2013, 11:36:15 PM

Quote from: Maxvla on September 20, 2013, 11:21:50 PM
if you mix for quality, you can't listen easily in the car or anywhere there is noise (restaurant, etc),

Bullshit. Slayer albums used to be DR14. Nobody complained that they couldn't hear them in the car.

Let's not use an exception to prove a rule. Slayer stuff is designed to be blasted.

DaveBSC · « **Reply #36 on:** September 21, 2013, 12:37:57 AM »

Quote from: Maxvla on September 20, 2013, 11:43:44 PM

So, Dave, you listen to non-normalized classical while on the highway?

I thought not. In order to hear the quiet passages, you have it turned up enough to blow your ears off when there's a sudden dynamic peak. You are constantly messing with the volume. This can easily happen with other genres like folk, jazz, among others. Some genres are so stereotypically normalized, you can't easily imagine what they would sound like uncompressed. Pop and rock would actually be hard to listen to in a car if it wasn't smashed to hell. Not as hard as classical, for sure, but there are often quiet parts of these songs that would be too low to hear with a high noise floor in effect.

You didn't say "you can't listen to non-normalized classical in the car." You said "if you mix for quality, you can't listen easily in the car or anywhere there is noise." That is 100% wrong. So is this: pop and rock would actually be hard to listen to in a car if it wasn't smashed to hell. Wrong.

What you're basically saying is that prior to about 1995, no one could hear any pop or rock music in the car. Man that must've been rough, not being able to hear music in the car because it was all too dynamic. Good thing DAW compressors and brickwall limiters came along and saved us all.

You're saying that the new Daft Punk can't be heard in the car, or the new Steven Wilson, or Nick Cave, Mumford & Sons, or Jack White. All mixed for quality, all can't be heard in the car. Nonsense.

http://productionadvice.co.uk/daft-punk-mastering/#more-6380

Maxvla · « **Reply #37 on:** September 21, 2013, 03:07:30 AM »

If you listened to highly dynamic music without normalization in a car, you truly are not hearing everything. That is a fact you can't dispute. For that fact, I actually am glad normalization came long. I listen in the car at about 60-70db so I appreciate being able to hear the full song, not just the loud parts.

Also, if you are cranking it up high enough to hear highly dynamic music, I hope everyone else in the car likes the music and doesn't need to talk to you.

schiit · « **Reply #38 on:** September 21, 2013, 03:20:17 AM »

Quote from: DaveBSC on September 21, 2013, 12:37:57 AM

Quote from: Maxvla on September 20, 2013, 11:43:44 PM
So, Dave, you listen to non-normalized classical while on the highway?

I thought not. In order to hear the quiet passages, you have it turned up enough to blow your ears off when there's a sudden dynamic peak. You are constantly messing with the volume. This can easily happen with other genres like folk, jazz, among others. Some genres are so stereotypically normalized, you can't easily imagine what they would sound like uncompressed. Pop and rock would actually be hard to listen to in a car if it wasn't smashed to hell. Not as hard as classical, for sure, but there are often quiet parts of these songs that would be too low to hear with a high noise floor in effect.

You didn't say "you can't listen to non-normalized classical in the car." You said "if you mix for quality, you can't listen easily in the car or anywhere there is noise." That is 100% wrong. So is this: pop and rock would actually be hard to listen to in a car if it wasn't smashed to hell. Wrong.

What you're basically saying is that prior to about 1995, no one could hear any pop or rock music in the car. Man that must've been rough, not being able to hear music in the car because it was all too dynamic. Good thing DAW compressors and brickwall limiters came along and saved us all.

You're saying that the new Daft Punk can't be heard in the car, or the new Steven Wilson, or Nick Cave, Mumford & Sons, or Jack White. All mixed for quality, all can't be heard in the car. Nonsense.

http://productionadvice.co.uk/daft-punk-mastering/#more-6380

QFT. I was into car stereo in the early, early days (think Spectron days), and I can absolutely say there was no problem with the tape, (and later) CD sources with uncompressed (or less-compressed) music of the 1980s, even with a non-quiet car. Sausaging out the mix is not required.

Classical, maybe--but Mike didn't have problems in his admittedly higher-end, quieter cars with classical, either.

DaveBSC · « **Reply #39 on:** September 21, 2013, 04:02:37 AM »

Quote from: schiit on September 21, 2013, 03:20:17 AM

QFT. I was into car stereo in the early, early days (think Spectron days), and I can absolutely say there was no problem with the tape, (and later) CD sources with uncompressed (or less-compressed) music of the 1980s, even with a non-quiet car. Sausaging out the mix is not required.

Classical, maybe--but Mike didn't have problems in his admittedly higher-end, quieter cars with classical, either.

Same. I've been into metal for about as long as I've been into music, and all of my old metal CDs are DR10+. My first car with a CD player was an old Taurus which was definitely noisier than my current A6. I could hear everything without a problem. I'm not talking about classical with massive dynamic swings, I'm talking about metal which used to be mastered at -10dB RMS and is now mastered at -5dB RMS. You know what you get with the extra dynamics and headroom? Kick drum. Bass guitar. Cymbals. And what do you get now with the wonders of brickwall limiting? No kick drum. No bass guitar. No cymbals. You do however get some nice, over-driven garbage that sounds like shit and makes you want to turn it off after 10 minutes. You can have it.

Poll

Poll: What, if anything, divides headphiles and audiophiles?

Author Topic: Poll: What, if anything, divides headphiles and audiophiles? (Read 6243 times)

funkmeister

Re: Poll: What, if anything, divides headphiles and audiophiles?

Maxvla

Re: Poll: What, if anything, divides headphiles and audiophiles?

DaveBSC

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DaveBSC

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Maxvla

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Maxvla

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DaveBSC

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Maxvla

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schiit

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DaveBSC

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Poll

Poll: What, if anything, divides headphiles and audiophiles?

Author Topic: Poll: What, if anything, divides headphiles and audiophiles? (Read 6243 times)