Quote:
Originally Posted by bob katz  Right, kjg, and here's another one that will blow Philip's mind: The sum of 3 or 4 measurably "accurate" components in series suddenly becomes inaccurate (or at least colored in a certain direction) due to accumulation of previously insignificant errors! Yes, indeed, apparent imperfections in a component that previously appeared accurate to you WILL BECOME more obvious to you both over time and in series with other components. Should you then throw out the newly-discovered imperfect component? Or perhaps do something when changing another component in the chain.
And yes, Philip, often we do discover that we have to throw out or change one component in a chain because we changed another for a more perfect one and that then revealed the weaknesses of the previous one. It is a road to perfection and we do have to live with it. Want to buy my collection of old DACs and ADCs from my garage?
Even Philip's search method for the perfect ADC (compare the ADC with the analog source), should it ever reveal to him the "perfect" ADC, will find over time that there are some imperfections. Of course, the ADC, the ultimate source for all the files which you are working with, especially when transferring from a precious analog tape---should be as accurate as we know how to make it. But since the ADC always has to be judged through a DAC, then the round robin always continues. And that DAC is connected to a less than perfect loudspeaker over a less than perfect amplifier. Therefore the process of assembling the best reproduction system is long and arduous. It took me nearly 10 years in this room to get my system to the "wow factor" that it has now. And it's been a very entertaining trip.
I'm reminded of a band I once recorded where the mandolinist said, "Isn't 'C' a wonderful key," whereupon the guitarist sarcastically replied, "Yes, especially when there are so many different C's". And then they tuned up. But there are many acceptable C's and I've heard some remarkable recordings where the unisons were not quite right but sounded wonderful because of it. But I digress. I'm not sure why I quoted this one...
The same round robin argument can be made for microphone judgment. Since all loudspeakers exhibit some degree of high frequency rolloff, how can you accurately judge a microphone through any loudspeaker? And what is "flat" anyway, with a microphone that exhibits proximity effect? That's why I wrote a book on the subject, because there are sensible answers to all these questions, once you understand the limitations. For microphones, there is the reciprocity method of measuring frequency response. For monitor chains, there are the methods described in my book, which I highly recommend to Philip.
BK |
yea that really blow my mind,
Yes it is fun buying gear for your studio but it takes time and costs money.
You may know from your psykoacostic class that hearing is very adaptive. You will pretty much go for anything that sounds as an reference as long as you don't have anything to compare it against.
So by comparing equipment to the truth you can listen to the difference, kind of usefull instead of comparing to nothing.
This is not really any different from a ABX test, if you don't know about ABX I think there are books that covers that subject. Or maybe you have a friend how is interested in science who can help you understand?
So... instead of more or less randomly throwing in different colors hoping the net result will be transparent you can sort the colors [you don't fancy] out. Now you even can choose from the colors you for some reason want. So it's a very usefull way yo test equipment even of you don't want to/can understand the principles of a transparent monitor chain.
/P