Keith G" wrote in message
...


This is an 'audio' newsgroup primarily concerned with the
production/reproduction of sound for (mostly) pleasure purposes populated
by (a few) people with differing views which I believe can be mostly
divided into two main groups - the 'accurists' (for want of a better word)
who strive for a sound which is 'as close to the original recorded signal
as possible' and the 'realists' (like me) who seek a sound which is 'as
close to the original physical sound as possible' or at least their/my
*idea* thereof ? (It all becomes highly subjective by the time the
recorded sound reaches the listeners ears in his own listening environment
when, for example, no two people would agree on the exact same *volume
setting* - never mind anything else!)

In the world of cinema sound the cinema's playback system is conceptually
divided into two parts at the source selector switch: the A-chain, which is
the soundhead, pre-amps decoders etc, and the B-chain, which is the balance
of the system, volume control, equalisers, power amps, speakers plus, of
course, the acoustic environment. There is a separate A-chain for each type
of source: optical analogue, magnetic analogue, optical digital, hard-drive
etc. whilst the B-chain is the same for them all.

Films are mixed in dubbing theatres which conform to an international
standard for frequency response, reverb time etc. and cinema B-chains are
adjusted to conform as closely as possible to that standard. Meanwhile the
A-chain is adjusted to be as nearly transparent as possible, ideally the
electrical signal leaving the cinema A-chain is exactly the same as the
electrical signal leaving the sound mixer's desk. This ensures that the
sound heard by the cinema patron is as close as possible to that heard in
the dubbing theatre. It also means that, at least as far as film sound
sources are concerned, the volume and frequency response are similar
regardless of the type of soundtrack being played (there is remarkably
little audible difference when switching back and forth between the digital
and analogue soundtracks on modern 35mm film prints)

Transferring this concept to the home Hi-Fi area, the record-player plus
RIAA pre-amp or CD player, tape machine, tuner etc. is clearly the A-chain.
Whilst the volume and tone controls, power amps and speakers (+room of
course) are the B-chain. Now I grant you that there is less standardisation
of music mixing rooms than is the case with film dubbing theatres, and there
is no standardisation of home listening rooms at all, nevertheless it seems
to me that at least for the A-chain the same principle applies, the signal
leaving the RIAA amp or CD player should be as close as possible to that
entering the monitoring chain in the mixing room. If you want to
bugger-about with the sound to make it "better" you can do that with the
B-chain.

Whatever. One thing the accurists have to fall back on is the 'mastertape'
and the gauged faithfulness to this (fidelity) was frequently thrown into
the arguments as the be-all and end-all of sound reproduction. The reason
for this is that it is fairly easy to *measure* deviation from the
original signal, rules can be made from various measurements and it
therefore becomes a useful weapon.

Well no. The reason is that the mastertape represents the sound that the
sound engineer, record producer, artist etc. agreed was what they wanted the
record to sound like.

Where it becomes horse**** in my book is when reference is
continually made to mastertapes that no-one has ever heard (or ever will)

No-one? what about the recording engineer, the producer, the artist etc?

and to events that weren't witnessed personally. OK?

All the realists have to counter this with is that a sound which may not
measure too well (and is therefore 'distorted') frequently sounds better
(and more *real*)

Well yes I understand, That's why 1950s AM radios with single-ended output
pentodes running 10% distortion at 3W sound far more "real" than anything
else! :-)

- PW, the accurist's God, said summat like the objective
of good hifi' is/would be a 'straight wire with gain'; I say fine, but
I'll bend it until it sounds better! Here's an example of how it works
which is less than 24 hours old:

Long rambling story snipped.

The upshot is my Bezzer is now 8 miles from here, while he checks to see
how well it drives his Altec Lansing behemoth speakers (???) - yet another
'realism beats accuracy' triumph, I believe,

How do you work that out?, what did your story have to do with either
accuracy or realism?


David.