jfischer@scocan.sco.com (Jonathan Fischer) (09/13/90)
In article <6242@uwm.edu> bilver!bill@uunet.UU.NET (Bill Vermillion) writes: > >In article <6223@uwm.edu> scocan!sco.COM!jfischer@uunet.UU.NET (Jonathan Fischer) writes: >> I've always thought (seriously) that this explained why Dolby >>noise reduction was so bad -- at least the original ... >... >To disparage Ray Dolby with comments like that is worse than a cheap shot. >If you have seen any of the pictures of the early pioneers, you will notice >Dolby prominent in many of them, including the first Ampexes ever made. > >And since Dolby noise reduction came along about 25 YEARS ago your >arguments are even more out of line. Cool down. Unfog your glasses. Take the proverbial valium. I was of the (mis?)impression that Ray Dolby was no spring chicken _25_years_ago_. And even if he was 30-ish, the point could still have applied. I could still hear up to 19 KHz or so, two years back, in university. I was one of *three or four* in a class of about 100 who could hear that high a frequency, at the volume the prof was playing it. So I honestly wasn't taking a cheap shot. The bottom line is that if audio engineers don't hear this high range of sound, than it could conceivably show up in their work. All I can say is that every single Dolby NR (A & B) home recording I've heard has mangled the high end (I'm not talking just 15K, either). The difference in cymbals, e.g., was quite noticeable, and unpleasant. Okay, so "probably" I haven't been exposed to the right decks (should've known better than to post here :o). If so, then I suppose my beef is that if a manufacturer hasn't done it right, they have no business putting the dolby switch on their deck (same goes for the "metal" EQ on the cheaper decks). But of course these buttons sell product. To put it in a more cautious, politically safe form: can someone out there who does hear the far side of the 20-20K band testify that with a high-end deck, a recording made with Dolby NR has no deterioration of the high frequencies, as opposed to a recording made without Dolby? If so, I'm truly impressed. (Reply by email). -- Jonathan Fischer SCO Canada, Inc. Toronto, Ontario, Canada Usenet's first law of Flamodynamics: For every opinion, there is an equal and opposite counter-opinion.
dar@cbnews.att.com (09/14/90)
| This bring up an interesting point: | many of the venerated figures in hi-fi are well past their middle years; | what does that say about their ability to *hear* audio equipment? Any | thoughts on this? | -- | Peter Chen | pwyc@pueblo.ATT.COM I have thought about this too. Producers like Quincy Jones and his lead recording engineer Bruce Sweiden(sp?) are in there late 50's/early 60's. It might also be the concept that if you don't use it you loose it. They use their hearing in a critical way for many years everyday. It could also be that not everyone's hearing deteriorates in the same way. I have seen on talk shows people interviewed who are 100 years old or older and they didn't have to be shouted at to be heard. Yet, some people as early as their 60's you have to almost shout for them to hear you. I think it is safe to assume that listening at lower volumes can only do you good. I have read in articles on mixing that it's better to do the mixing at low volume levels since if everything can be heard at that level then when it is turned up it will sound even better. In article <6220@uwm.edu>, bilver!bill@uunet.UU.NET (Bill Vermillion) writes: | | [...] | The general consensus among those in the business is not how good your | hearing is, but how well you listen, or learned to listen. I think this sums up perhaps what I was trying to say. I'm a trumpet player who has asthma but the asthma has not gotten in the away of my trumpet playing and I think it has more to do with the way I approach the instrument and the instruction I have received. It's learning to use what you got! David