Klarinet Archive - Posting 000233.txt from 2002/11

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Why Bb? (was: reverse Mozart)
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 06:56:57 -0500

At 09:47 PM 11/4/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>In the case of the CD at that time, the analog converters were the same. So
>I would expect there wouldn't be a discernible difference between a $150 CD
>player and a $500 CD player. They all sounded lousy.

Actually, I made a typo. I meant $5000 players, which I KNOW had different
D/A converters.

>The fact that there are measurable differences that are transparent to the
>listener does not negate the proposition that there are non-measurable
>differences the listener CAN hear, nor the proposition that there are
>measurable differences the listener can hear.

OK, we just have not figured out HOW to measure some things yet.

>If measurement is important, then what's at issue from a sonic point of view
>is what is being measured. Some distortion is consonant with music, some is
>not.

Precisely. Which is why some folks continue to tout vinyl, which has
distortions that are relatively pleasing to the ear. Remove those
distortions and the music sounds "harsher" or more "metallic" by
comparison. What it REALLY is is more accurate. Still, the BEST part about
CD's is that they do not WEAR with repeated listenings. The most annoying
distortions in vinyl recordings occur later in their life.

>Tube equipment, for example, can register greater distortion on the
>oscilloscope, but still sound more truthful to the music than transistor
>designs because tubes do not distort harmonic content in the same way
>transistor designs used to.
>
>Recent advances in solid state design and the CD have ameliorated many of
>the problems I experienced when I was listening seriously, I found the CD
>intolerable on everything but chamber music. All my equipment used tubes,
>including the phono stage.

Tubes have a very pleasant distortion signature, and clip VERY softly, but
are by nature VERY distorting, and the distortion constantly changes over
the tubes' lifetime. And I should think that chamber music would be the
most distortion-revealing type of ALL with all those close-mic setups!

>The Absolute Sound, we relied (and they continue to rely) on our ears. We
>tested nothing. It is amazing the extraordinary advances in design that
>ensued because of this philosophy. Kinda the same approach as we use to pick
>out a new clarinet, huh? We don't hook one of them up to some gadget
>(although I admit I take my tuner).
>
>Now I listen to CDs on two Boston Acoustic Speakers, driven by a Radio Shack
>RCA receiver driven and a Denon CD player, and I am happy. Whether it is
>"absolute" doesn't concern me anymore. But I do remember the days I had my
>Maggies cranking powered by 500 watts of well-designed equipment, and
>nothing has compared since, except of course, live music, which is what I am
>into now.

Of course, if it pleases YOUR ears, you need look no further. The tiny
improvements you could achieve by throwing another few thousand dollars at
the system would not be worthwhile.

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

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