October 27th 04, 06:59 AM
posted to uk.rec.audio
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Is Hi-Fi delusional?
On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 17:55:40 +0100, Kurt Hamster
wrote:
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 16:38:12 +0000 (UTC), Stewart Pinkerton used
to say...
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 12:24:36 +0100, "Keith G"
wrote:
"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On 22 Oct 2004 16:49:30 GMT, ohawker (Andy
Evans) wrote:
Well congratulations - your MC stage is solid state. So that probably adds
no
crap then.
As I have said before, you know **** all about my hifi system sounds. If
you
start telling me how it sounds from the wilds of Addis Abbaba or wherever
the
**** you live you either have ears the size of Crystal Palace and a
communication system as yet unknown to mankind, or you are simply choosing
thoughts in a random order. For instance, the sentence "Cauliflower putty
regionalises Libra gorillas" is approximately equal in meaning to the
combined
statements you have made about the sound from my system.
But you already *told* us that it's crap, since you claim that it
doesn't sound the same as it would if it was all SS. Your words, not
ours.
'Ours'....??
(The 'royal we' or do you speak for a shattering majority in this group?)
Just those of us who regularly deconstruct your delusional bull****.
That's the plural 'your', including Andy and the short rodent.
Huh? WHy do I get roped in on this one?
I don't have any valve gear and I use whatever media contains the music
I want to listen to.
Delusional BS doesn't just have to be about valves, y'know! :-)
--
Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering
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October 27th 04, 07:02 AM
posted to uk.rec.audio
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Is Hi-Fi delusional?
On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 17:58:32 +0100, Kurt Hamster
wrote:
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 22:39:54 +0000 (UTC), Stewart Pinkerton used
to say...
On 23 Oct 2004 16:54:05 GMT, ohawker (Andy
Evans) wrote:
musos are notorious for having crap hi-fi
I know a few thousand personally - how many do you know?
I know a few dozen. That's a more likely figure than your 'thousands'.
Ob: opinion stated as fact
Nope, it's a fact that it's more likely. It's a further fact that, in
the context of knowing what kind of hi-fi they have, your claim of
'thousands' is utter ********.
How many of your 'friends' are six feet tall and called Harvey?
I have one, but he doesn't have bunny ears.
I'm sure he'd wear a pair if you asked him nicely.....
--
Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering
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October 27th 04, 07:04 AM
posted to uk.rec.audio
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Is Hi-Fi delusional?
On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 18:03:43 +0100, Kurt Hamster
wrote:
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 15:41:57 +0000 (UTC), Stewart Pinkerton used
to say...
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 12:02:20 +0100, "Keith G"
wrote:
"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 14:18:08 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:
In article ,
Andy Evans wrote:
Being a professional musician and having a good 'ear' for sound are not
- by a long chalk - interdependent
Extraordinary statement. So would you say that being an engineer and
being able to understand circuits "are not - by a long chalk -
interdependent" as well?
Plenty of excellent recording engineers have little understanding of
circuits at the component level. It just isn't necessary.
Ahem - that may perhaps not be a good application of the term
'engineer' - somewhat akin to 'road sanitation engineer'........
An maintenance engineer is a different matter.
Design engineers rarely have any involvement in the operation of audio
equipment on a pro basis.
Very true - but they often have excellent hi-fi systems!
WTF do *you* know about it???
That would be because I'm a design engineer,
Was one, Pinky. Past tense. You are now an IT clone.
Once an engineer, always an engineer. And the world is controlled by
digital stuff nowadays, didn't you know?
and I have an excellent
hi-fi system - not a valve in sight! :-)
Ob: a subjective opinion stated as fact.
Nope, excellence confirmed by a top mastering engineer, and definitely
no valves.
--
Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering
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October 27th 04, 02:01 PM
posted to uk.rec.audio
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Is Hi-Fi delusional?
In article ,
Kurt Hamster wrote:
Perhaps you shouldn't have used "only" on the front of the sentence then
eh? Its usage makes 'those with narrow minds' into 'only those with
narrow minds'. It then becomes an absolute. It may not have been your
intention but that's what you managed to achieve nonetheless.
No it doesn't. I'm assuming few have narrow minds. In general. Not as
applied to some topics here, though.
You have a remarkably poor understanding of English for one who spouts
so much. Replay means to repeat something. Therefore it has to be
recorded. If you'd said 'relay' that would have been perhaps what you
really meant. But who knows or cares?
I'll give you that one 
TBH I'd forgotten I'd used that phrase, so yes I was totally incorrect
to pick you up on it.
Perhaps it would be more to the point if you commented the jist of a post
- not nit-pick on words?
--
*Women like silent men; they think they're listening.
Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.
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October 27th 04, 04:07 PM
posted to uk.rec.audio
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Hiraga and MC cartridges, etc; Was Is Hi-Fi delusional?
On 22 Oct, wrote:
In article , Andy Evans
wrote:
Jean Hiraga in the 70s I believe, showing why moving coil cartridges
like the EMT sounded better by looking at their harmonic spectrum.
If you look at the comments I make below, and re-read the Hiraga articles I
think you will find he did not "show" this, but surmise it might be the
case on the basis of some rather limited (and perhaps misleading)
measurements.
In some ways the above comment may be one you welcome as it does chime
with the view that the measurements people make can often be over-simple,
and hence misleading. :-)
Reference?
It was an article in HiFi news that started a lot of debate. Don't
have the year, unfortunately.
OK. I have the indexes for HFN for most years, so I'll have a trawl and
see what I can find. I can recall his article on cables, but not one on
MC cartridges and what you describe, so I'll see if I can find it and
see what he claimed.
I've now found and re-read;
"Amplifier Musicality" Hiraga HFN 1977 March pg41
"Pickup Musicality" Hiraga HFN 1977 April pg79
I think these may be the articles in question. They try to associate a
'sound' with the relative levels of the harmonics for THD of a sinewave.
Argument being (IIUC) that some shapes of harmonic distortion spectra are
more 'natural' or more like those of the instruments. IIRC a number of
articles have made similar claims/assumptions. I had a feeling this was the
point he was making, but my memory being unreliable I though it worthwhile
to check before making any comments
What the articles say seems perfectly reasonable, but may be 'putting the
cart before the horse' in some ways. To illustrate this I'd note the
distinction between two statements:
A) That when we observe that two different cartridges (or amps, or other
devices) show different THD spectra for a sinewave we can expect it
to be possible that this difference in distortion behaviour may mean
that the distortion has different audible effects for the two items.
B) That any perceived or assumed difference in sound *is* due solely
or primarily to the difference in distortion behaviours shown by
a different in the spectra.
Statement (A) seems to me both plausible and reasonable as a generalised
comment. However (B) tries to work the argument in the reverse direction,
but then ignores possible other sources of audible difference. (Assuming,
of course, that the difference is a genuine feature of the items in
question.)
I think that many/most people would regard it as plausible that when
we see different spectra of distortion, that this might mean the
nonlinearities have different audible effects.
There are various problems with taking what he wrote beyond being just
one possible factor in any audible differences.
Some examples outlined below:
1) The distortion measurements are only power-frequency spectra, taken at
just one frequency at one sinewave signal power. Hence they do not tell us
anything about how the distortion pattern might vary with the input
sinewave power or frequency. Hence the patterns he shows may not be really
characteristic of the items for which he shows measurements.
2) Real musical waveforms - as he indicates - tend not to be pure
sinewaves. Since we only have power-frequency spectra in his articles (with
the restrictions mentioned in (1)) we can't really work out if the results
of distorting more musical signals would be as he assumes.
3) It is something of a simplication to assume that real musical waveforms
are simply series of a fundamental and harmonics as he describes/assumes.
The actual waveforms may have significantly different features. e.g have a
look at some of the examples on the 'asymmetry' webpage in the 'Audio Misc'
collection whose home page URL is in my sig. From this you can see that
instrumental waveforms may have asymmetric shapes of various kinds, and
that their properties may vary in complex or semi-random ways. e.g. the
violin waveform where the waveshape varies quite a lot from one cycle to
another. Given the physics of how something like a violin works this isn't
surprising. (His consideration also omits transients.) However this all
means that this simple assumptions may mean he is missing some important
points.
4) He does not give any real reasons for accepting that this is a case
of 'MC distortions' are systematically or unavoidably different to
'MM distortions' in the ways he describes/claims in the specific examples
he uses. Hence while the audible effect may vary with distortion spectrum,
he does not show that this means that 'MC' is different as a category
to 'MM' on this basis.
(2) and (3) mean that the effects of distorting a real musical waveform may
not be as he assumes, and that factors that are not covered may matter. In
particular I'd pick out the actual transfer curve nonlinearity as varying
this would allow two amps or cartridges with the same sinewave THD at a
give level to alter more asymmetric or time-variable waveforms in quite
different way even if the power-spectra of the sinewave distortion were
similar. IIRC KH has made a similar point in HFN some months ago.
I could expand on the above, and people can clearly debate the relative
significance of the above (and other factors). However I think the bottom
line is that his claims may be a part of the situation, but perhaps may not
be the most significant part. And that his assumptions and claims are just
presented in the articles, but with no real evidence to show that his
argument is valid or as significant as he assumes. Nor does he provide
much evidence to establish that you or I would agree with his comments
on the 'sound' of all the items.
There may well be later articles that deal with this in a more careful
manner, though.
Slainte,
Jim
--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html
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October 27th 04, 04:39 PM
posted to uk.rec.audio
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Is Hi-Fi delusional?
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 13:02:29 +0100, Kurt Hamster
wrote:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 07:04:00 +0000 (UTC), Stewart Pinkerton used
to say...
On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 18:03:43 +0100, Kurt Hamster
wrote:
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 15:41:57 +0000 (UTC), Stewart Pinkerton used
to say...
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 12:02:20 +0100, "Keith G"
wrote:
"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
om...
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 14:18:08 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:
In article ,
Andy Evans wrote:
Being a professional musician and having a good 'ear' for sound are not
- by a long chalk - interdependent
Extraordinary statement. So would you say that being an engineer and
being able to understand circuits "are not - by a long chalk -
interdependent" as well?
Plenty of excellent recording engineers have little understanding of
circuits at the component level. It just isn't necessary.
Ahem - that may perhaps not be a good application of the term
'engineer' - somewhat akin to 'road sanitation engineer'........
An maintenance engineer is a different matter.
Design engineers rarely have any involvement in the operation of audio
equipment on a pro basis.
Very true - but they often have excellent hi-fi systems!
WTF do *you* know about it???
That would be because I'm a design engineer,
Was one, Pinky. Past tense. You are now an IT clone.
Once an engineer, always an engineer. And the world is controlled by
digital stuff nowadays, didn't you know?
Yes, but you were an analogue engineer weren't you, so even less
relevance.
Precision analogue specialist in the '70s, mixed signal engineer in
the '80s, as the front end signal conditioners acquired more digital
content. The kit I was designing (mainly automated test equipment) was
always computer-controlled, although the computers became massively
more powerful in the '80s. Progress, y'know.....
I don't call myself either a sailor or a paramedic just because I used
to be one. Perhaps you should realise the past is past.
OTOH, I'm still doing engineering work, and I'm on an engineering
salary grade.
Out of interest what exactly is your official job title?
Document developer and project manager, Group Technology, grade
Infrastructure C. Unluckily, I only get one salary for the two hats!
--
Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering
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October 27th 04, 04:41 PM
posted to uk.rec.audio
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Is Hi-Fi delusional?
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 13:00:17 +0100, Kurt Hamster
wrote:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 06:59:54 +0000 (UTC), Stewart Pinkerton used
to say...
Delusional BS doesn't just have to be about valves, y'know! :-)
Pray tell what is it I'm delusional about then?
Vinyl.
--
Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering
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October 27th 04, 04:53 PM
posted to uk.rec.audio
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Is Hi-Fi delusional?
In article ,
Kurt Hamster wrote:
No it doesn't. I'm assuming few have narrow minds. In general. Not as
applied to some topics here, though.
Can you think of another purpose of "only"?
I can't.
FFS. 'Only those with narrow minds' refers to only those with narrow minds.
If you think this refers to everyone, so be it. I don't give a toss what
you think anyway.
--
*Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.
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