jj@alice.UUCP (06/01/85)
I've read several articles lately, by Craig Dory, Phil Karn, and others, and I've noticed a strong theme throughout, that being that audio is art, and that engineering isn't art. I disagree substantially with both, so I suspect there's some room for discussion here... <Enter reminisce mode, type 'n' if you're easily bored, yawn> I started out in audio like a lot of people, namely, I listened, I liked, and I bought. Then, I listened a little more, thought a while, and built, eliminating the problems that I had bought the first time around. This went on for a while, and led to my beginning to look for good models from control systems (the mathmatical part, not the "concept") that would describe some of the things I heard. Needless to say, the needs for math soon went far afield of control systems. To make a long story short, I worked on reinforcement, recording (for a while), and decided that the entire schmeer was too opinionated (I grew excessively weary of hearing "this is stupid, that is stupid" by all the :"authorities") and too poor to make a good living at, and started working on digital signal processing. The applications were obvious from the start, but the requsite convertors were out of sight, i.e. the designers of the few 14 bit digital convertors (either direction) that were fast enough didn't even admit that "time behavior" was a problem. So, I worked on digital speech for a while, while doing a lot of analog consultation (intra-company) for various sorts on an informal basis. <exit boring mode> Some of the things I've tried were tests on what sorts of distortions were caused by what sort of signals in what sort of equipment. This led to several designs of input modifying devices that were intended to make one sort of equipment (triode, pentode, transistor) sound like another. For the most part, it was easy to make a GOOD (notice the strong emphasis) transistor amplifier sound like any of the others, by making various modifications of the input signal to the amplifier. Such things as a transformer in parallel with a shunt on the other winding, several diodes to give either center clipping (of a very mild variety), a few class A transistors and caps to do some slew-rate limiting, and so on, and the deception seemed to work very well, i.e., I convinced several people that the MacIntosh with nothing but the heaters glowing was what they were listening to, that it had a switch for the screen-grid proportioning circuit that made it act triodish, and that I had switched the switch, when the ony working amp in the room was a !!!Southwest Technical Products Tiger .01!!! <well, actually a pair of them, the signal being stereo...> So, I must say my faith in audiophiles, etc, sort of completely evaporated. <These tests were made in school days, I could make some better ones now, but I really don't have the time to trash, and I don't seem to have very many audiophile friends, either...> When CD's came out, I listened to a few, and it was evident from my digital (work) experience that the recording process was crocked. Not just badly done, totally crocked. It was also obvious that the digital medium didn't have the problems, the recording engineer did. (I meant to "" recording engineer, oh, well, I don't want to call an editor at this stage of the game...) The various glaring problems wiht miking, hall acoustics, etc, were almost painful, as was the bad EQ. <I must admit I didn't know WHY the EQ was bad, Bob Carver seems to have covered that one.> I'll pass, for the time being, on the artificial enhancements on vinyl that aren't on CD as a result of there being no mastering process. Anyhow, back to the premise, that audio isn't totally art and engineering has artistic (in the sense of elegance) facets. I claim that audio is a VERY inexact field, and that many people have learned very well to listen differently, and judge differently, depending on whether or not the source is live or recorded. This is due to the various inexaxtnesses in the process, and so on. Anyhow, it's clear to me, at least, that the question is NOT "lifelike" reproduction, it's "reproduction in the way that I'm used do", that drives MOST audiophiles. It's also clear that such differences can usually be easily examined and captured, IFF one is allowed to make the necessary measurements, and then goes away and analyze the results and comes back to do some subjective tests. The problem is that EVERY setup has different variables <and I count moving the speakers, etc, as variables here> and that the evaluation for any one individual and system is good ONLY for that individual and system. Hence the conclusion that engineering can detect and manipulate the effects heard by any given listener. I certainly agree that the recording engineer, etc, shouldn't interfere with the performance aspects! (For example, a recent IEEE paper (I forget which society we sent it to) <First author Cox, RV> that describes tests on several lower quality audio signals found that, in a small, and QUITE simple test, there were several distinct kinds of listeners.) The conclusion that engineering has artistic possiblities I think I'll leave, it's clearly less controversial in this forum, I'm tired of typing, and this is too long already. -- TEDDY BEARS HAVE LIMITED PATIENCE! THEY DO EVENTUALLY GET HUNGRY! "What's the use of bearing bracers, hats or spats or shoes with laces, or the things they buy in places down on Brompton Row? (ihnp4/allegra)!alice!jj