Paul's Posts — 05 July 2012
By Paul McGowan
We’ve taken a simplistic look at recordings and shown what’s probably obvious to most – that recording and reproducing simple electrical signals like those out of a guitar is rather easy and something we need not question about preserving. Quite a number of you pointed out that seems like a rather trivial task – recording those small electrical signals that seem so simple. Indeed.
But let me point out that everything we record is nothing more than “simple electrical signals” no different than those straight out of our electric guitar (which actually aren’t that simple). The only differences we hear, and this is the point of this series, comes from the outer edges of the art – the input and output devices of our recording chain or, as I like to say, the “goes into” and the “goes out of” devices – microphones and loudspeakers and their necessary support kit.
Obvious you suggest? I am not sure about that. As Audiophiles we stress over sample rates, bit depth and any number of criteria involved in the recording process – yet that same recording process when applied to simple electrical signals directly injected from an acoustic instrument (our guitar) via an electrical pickup – are indistinguishable for any type of reasonable recording process.
Before you jump off the chair and point out that an electrical guitar is a bad example because it hasn’t any transients, hasn’t any tonal qualities to mask, hasn’t any subtle details like those reproduced by a microphone, let me point out this isn’t exactly true. A magnetic pickup on a guitar can have over 100dB of dynamic range, is extremely sensitive to the quick transient nature of a guitar string and even though it works on a principal similar to a phono cartridge (without the mechanical interface) it is much more sensitive. But I digress.
I want to spend a moment on the outer edge pieces – pieces of kit we believe contain much more information and are more problematic to record and reproduce properly than those of a “simple” electrical pickup from a guitar.
We’ll jump in tomorrow.
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alan
My planar loudspeakers are far, far from linear devices, yet they make it easy for me to distinguish differences between interconnects and speaker cables (I have no idea which of the cables allow me to hear closest to the recorded signal, though some seem obviously bad!). I suspect it is just those non-linearities that highlight the difference I hear. Those highlights are usually in the mid-range from about 500 to 4000 Hz. It is also in this range that I found elements of the reproduced music both most enjoyable and most annoying. I’ve tried “flattening” the measured output by placing an equalizer in line with the digital signal before the DAC, but that seems to wring the life out of the music – highly unsatisfying. I understand that most probably my measurement technique is faulty, thus what I actually hear is likely not “flat.” Can anyone offer suggestions for improving my measurement technique?
GettingThere45
Can I suggest that reproducing a marching band is pretty tough and a better test of a reproduction chain than
an electric guitar? Drums are a good test as well (even a direct-to-disk Sheffield drum record didn’t really capture the feeling of a drum kit being played nearby).
Maybe there is some directionality to the sound that is getting lost. The sense of acoustic space seems to be hard to achieve.