On Sep 4, 4:06 pm, Poor Plowie ("Dave Plowman (News)"
) wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:

Surely the question should be, "Whose accuracy?"
The late unlamented Stewart Pinkerton used to claim that "Audio is
engineering, music is art" or some such rot, together with its express
corollary, "When the amplifier produces exactly what is on the master
tape, the designer's job is done." Clearly, that puts the the
recording engineer, the master of the master tape, in charge of the
outcome.
I can name some recording engineers I have known, including some I
employed, that I would like to throw down the stairs to remove them as
carbuncles from culture. They were soulmates of the execrably smug
Pinkostinko.

And just what has that to do with the reproducing chain reproducing
accurately the source?

Why, Plowie, if you had read on instead of fulminating, you would have
understood, for I went on to say what you have conveniently cut:

However, on the whole I think most recording engineers of the kind of
music I like are cultured men who do their best to reproduce the
musicians' performance and the ambience of the environment well. It
is
not their fault that a precise reproduction of their master tape (as
through a Krell and Wilson multi-cones, for instance, by the
Pinkostinko definition definitely "blameless") fails to satisfy the
hedonist's desire for closer replication of the experience of the
live
event. Many of them are acutely aware that the subliminal cues
experienced in the concert hall are missing from recordings but,
again, that is an *engineering* problem with the reproduction chain
and its fixation on the long-since irrelevant reduction of THD,
presently more for the sake of more because they lack the brains to
think of something else. ("Once we have minimized THD, the
reproduction chain is perfect so WTF are you whining about? We're
giving you ever-vanishing THD!"

Now let's look at your insensitive question again:
And just what has that to do with the reproducing chain reproducing
accurately the source?

Why, everything, as I have just explained. What it comes down to, in
words of one syllable just for you, Plowie, is that one must listen to
a recording where you didn't hear the original concert with an
awareness of who the recording engineer was, whether he is a person of
trustworthy culture or a mere meterhead belonging to the Pinkostinko
tendency of pleasure-wreckers. Can you understand that in the same way
as you hate everything I say because I have stepped on the pretentions
of your profession so often and so effectively, others might regard
the product of sound engineers in the light of their express general
attitude and perceived culture? Or does it work only one way? (That
would be another telling example of the general fascist insensitivity
of engineers as a class, to which I have referred before.)

You then continue in the same dumb vein with junior school debating
tricks:

You might as well say you don't want it to reproduce Bach because you
don't like his music.

Crap. It is not only widely known that I think Johann Sebastian Bach
is the greatest composer who ever lived, the argument is in itself
fallacious. In any event, I answered that piece of debating trade crud
too, in another passage you conveniently cut:

Of course, we all have our own version of taste. Mine is simply the
sound I heard in the room on the day, with the performers on the
recording playing live. Peter Walker's "window on the concert hall"
has legs.

Another example of your flawed reasoning, methinks.

Plowie, I don't tell you how to do your job. Why don't you pay me the
same courtesy and avoid the humiliation of having your poor reasoning
pointed out to you with turpentined stick every time you say something
as dumb as that? I give you the tip only because I know you're too
thick and too self-important and too reckless to take it.

Another example of your flawed reasoning, methinks.

No, Plowie, you don't think. As I have demonstrated, you emote. That's
a bad thing for an engineer to do. People might start mistaking you
for a human.

Christ, I even answered your silly, untrue (on this occasion -- I
often enjoy your taglines) tagline:

*Fax is stronger than fiction *

No, it isn't, not in audiophilia, as I pointed out in my original,
which true to form you cut:
My contempt for the farm machinery mechanics among the meterhead
"engineers" is matched only by my contempt for self-acclaimed golden
ears among the "audiophiles" whose only reference is other amps they
have heard, whose definition of "better" is a more stunning sound than
the last amp they heard, regardless of the intrinsic dynamics of the
performance, who never go to concerts because they already know what
they like.

If you don't think that describes people immune to the reality
contained in music, perhaps you should take remedial English
comprehension lessons at a poly near you.

What's more, your mindless wishful thinking:
*Fax is stronger than fiction *
isn't even true in real life. The wishful thinkers have the engineers
beat on every front. I'm standing right behind you Plowie, on that one
at least, since I cannot abide loose thinking, and you're stomping my
instep. You're an ingrate.

And Plowie, you should pay attention or tomorrow you won't remember
what I said. This important message, for instance, which you also
carelessly cut:
Yes, Virginia, you can have it both ways. There is a sane middle road.

Finally, Plowie, if you're about to pick a fight with me, pick a more
popular subject than Pinkerton as your cause. Pinkerton was so
universally despised, you quite along today. Even my cat feels sorry
for you, and it is an animal even more insensitive than you.

Andre Jute
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. --H.H.Munro
("Saki")(1870-1916)

Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
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for the tube audio constructor"
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containing vital gems of wisdom"
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And all this important deep thought from the Commander, which the
wretched Plowie enviously cut (tsch!, tsch!):

"George" wrote:
Why "accuracy"? For certain Usenet poseurs, this is the question
that dare
not speak its name.
Normals and 'borgs alike would surely accept that the purpose of an
audio
system is to enable us to enjoy listening to recorded music. Normals
choose
the pieces of a system that maximizes listening pleasure. How does
praying
to the god of "accuracy" help attain that end?

I believe I know the answer to my question, but that answer is
bizarre.
Rather than suggest my own answer, I ask the "accuracy" lovers to
explain
their choice.