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Is it pure?

Paul's Posts — 05 December 2011

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Is it pure?

I’ve been thinking recently about our discussions on tone controls a few weeks ago.

Initially I objected when a commenter suggested we could use tone controls selectively to improve recordings.  That seemed to violate the purity of the recording.  After all, isn’t the goal to get as close to what the recordist’s wanted you to hear in the first place?

Maybe not.  Actually, when I think about it, I don’t really care what the original intent of the recording was.

I am always doing whatever I can to getting as close as possible to a “live recording”.  Live (not in the sense of an audience) means to me the system has gone away and I can make believe what I am hearing is actually in the room with me.  Yes, that’s the goal; always.

So anything that gets me closer to the goal of having live musicians playing in my room is good.

Even if I have to “improve” upon the original purity of the recording to achieve that.

…and yes (horrors) even if tone controls get me there.

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About Author

Paul McGowan

Paul McGowan is the CEO and co-founder of PS Audio Inc. a Boulder Colorado design and manufacturing company of high-end audio products and services. McGowan has been designing and building high-end products for nearly 40 years. Hobbies include skiing, music, hiking, artisan bread baking, kick boxing and cooking. He lives in Boulder Colorado with his wife Terri and his 4 sons.

(13) Readers Comments

  1. Phil Gan

    December 5, 2011 at 4:25 am

    You can’t tell me that the recording engineers don’t have tone controls! What you’re proposing is the ability to have a different opinion to the recording engineer of what suits your audio environment, preferences etc.. so long as it sounds natural. Our senses can be fooled into bliss. Whatever makes your ears happy, Paul! That would be a pretty good surrogate for many of us… :-)

  2. fig

    December 5, 2011 at 4:51 am

    I’ve heard DSP do remarkable things to sound quality on a friends system and seeing as how the PWD is one of the best audio devices I own, it is not surprising that digital can improve some things…That being said, my analog rig is better sounding than my digital for now, but perhaps the new PWD will continue to close the gap..Whatever it takes to increase our enjoyment of listening to music is the goal, whether it is gear, tone controls or DSP.

  3. Gannon

    December 5, 2011 at 7:41 am

    Since as far back as I can remember, I’ve casually studied the studio experience.

    Got lucky when I was the Technical Editor for that old home theater journal to tour a few of ‘em in Los Angeles, including a formidable rock ‘n’ roll one on Ventura Boulevard with a name that escapes memory now…and the first fully surround-sound 5.1 Studios in West LA. I’ve tried to tour as many around the Detroit area recently, and count as friends one of Bob Ludwig’s well-groomed mastering engineers in NYC. I’ve got a bit of a taste of the production end of things…and it is more random than any of ‘em would like to admit!

    Just like when I began interviewing creator-engineers of amplifiers and speakers…noticing their final sound tweaking always depended upon what they chose to evaluate their product with, speakers responded to certain amplifiers in predictable ways and vice-versa…I now know that any and every recording I put through my reference systems is tainted in some fashion, depending upon the recording engineer’s audition system.

    I am appalled by the number of ‘em who succumb to the lowest common denominator, too. Many engineers mistake the adage to check that their recordings ALSO sound good on basic car stereo and boom boxes as the ONLY sound analysis they need to do with their final mix. I kid you not…a few steps down from the top tier of music production, all bets are off. Plus, most studios don’t even follow the well-proven research the BBC has done regarding studio design and building! (don’t get me started on the number of studio owners who are frustrated old rock-n-rollers with egos the size of Texas who refuse to acknowledge they’ve gone deaf, either)

    For MOST of my hifi career, I was a straight-wire-with-gain sorta guy…but now I know better. Tone controls are a necessity…but NOT to match the system to the room. That requires much more finesse and control than basic bass and treble twiddling! Tone controls are needed to trim the recording to match the listener’s expectations our of their own system.

    Cheers,
    John
    Detroit

  4. Gannon

    December 5, 2011 at 7:43 am

    our should be ouT in that last sentence…I’ve got to whip my copy editor again this morning…

  5. Soundminded

    December 5, 2011 at 8:12 am

    Equalization is one of the most widely accepted and powerful techniques used by electronics engineers.Without equalization FM radio, analog television, the LP, and analog magnetic tape recording among others would not have been possible.Dolby noise reduction took the application of equalization to new heights by combing it with variable dynamic compression and expansion.

    As there are no two sound systems that perform exactly alike and no standard way to make a recording, spectral balance of recordings are all over the map.What sounds accurate on one sound system is highly inaccurate on another.Only by means of equalization of each recording on playback can the variations be compensated for.LPs made at large studios in an era when equalization of monitor loudspeakers was “calibrated” frequenty gave some consistency but today with recording engineers coming from the ranks of audiophile “purists” spectral balance varies wildly.I’ve got two recordings from the same manufacturer, consecutive serial numbers, same musicians, same type of music, same studio, same equipment, different engineers and they are very different. I’ve got several from the same engineer, same performer, same musical instrument, same venue but at different times and they are noticably different too. IMO tonal accuracy of musical instruments is an essential criteria for any sound system that has a pretense of high fidelity.Tonality is one of the four essential elements of music, Imaging isn’t.

    There are at least two valid definitions of accuracy. One is how instruments would sound in your room and the other is how they sound at a live venue. In many regards including tonality they can be very different owing to the major and critical role acoustics of venue have on how we perceive sound. Achieving the first goal is within the possibilities of current sound system design technology although rarely if ever achieved to the satisfaction of knowledgeable critical listeners. Achieving the second goal isn’t because tonality at a live performance is inherently connected to the acoustics of venue itself, that is you must reproduce concert hall acoustics to reproduce the tone you’d hear there, they are different subjective aspects of the same phenomenon.

    • December 5, 2011 at 1:41 pm

      Well stated.

    • BryRohr

      December 6, 2011 at 2:20 pm

      Personally, I’ve always hated noise reduction processes. I think they are like advanced suspension systems on cars. Example in point, if you want a smooth ride drive down a smooth road. If you want a noise free recording, don’t record the noise! I always switched them off or out and was never so happy to see them go away in the consumer market. Even in the studio, DBX, Dolby, whatever process used always sounded dynamically “weird” in the end and NOTHING improved a well engineered recording where the levels were properly set to fully exercise the dynamic range capacity of the equipment. In my honest opinion, noise reduction is simply reserved for that “great” performance, you know, the one where the engineer had his head up his butt and the sound quality was horrible.

  6. bfotk

    December 5, 2011 at 8:32 am

    I don’t care what the recordist wants me to hear. The recording engineer is a necessary evil that both enables and mediates communication between musicians and the listeners. (The sound board fiddlers at “live” performances do that, too.)

    And the recordist isn’t the last person to get his or her hands into the mess. The mastering is at least as big a deal as the recording process, as you pointed out so well a short while ago.

    Recording and mastering practices are subject to all sorts of fads and fancies. Recording studios and mastering facilities offer about the same level of purity as did Mahogany Hall.

  7. oliver T. Finch

    December 5, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    Most recordings are heavily equalised and do not represent the original performance as it was performed. Thus the need for tone controls. In fact only a few decibels of increase or decrease can make a dramatic difference. And that is the reason purists have a terribly limited choice of music they listen to. Regards.

  8. omniclassic

    December 7, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    When you think about it, everything in a given system is a “tone control” to one extent or another. From your source microphones, through the wiring, amplifiers, more wiring and eventually, through your speakers. And of course let’s not forget the effect of room acoustics on what you hear. So, who knows what the original recording actually sounds like.., and even if you were there, does the recording sound like the instruments did in the studio or hall? Oops! there’s another variable the hall or studio acoustics.

    I’ve been an engineer for over 30+ years, and I’m continually amazed at the similarities to the original that many of my recordings posses after all that crap they go through to reach a final product. Amazed that a guitar still sounds like a guitar and a violin like a violin.., and most of all that the music still holds up as a viable emotional experience. SO! that being said, who am I to begrudge the listener doing a little tone adjustment to make it sound to his liking. After all he/she can only do so much before realizing that, once applied, some destruction has taken place and the need to back off the tone controls is due. Even the purist who doesn’t have tone controls on his gear will begin futzing with the room and speaker position to get things in order.., or, in other words, adjusting another, sort of, “tone control”.

  9. Mike48

    December 10, 2011 at 12:18 pm

    Paul,

    I’m glad to see your new opinion on this. I’ve had similar conversations with a few other high-end manufacturers, and none of them would budge. As humans, we tend to get locked into positions — but that’s what impedes progress and true dialog. A thinking and flexible high-end designer is a pleasure to find.

    It seems to me that the ideal spot for tone controls would be a plug-in to the PWD. Or perhaps a unit between PWT and PWD — in other words, in the digital domain, without added ADC or DAC. A design that blends flexibility with ease of use is the tricky part. Somewhere between the Quad’s “tilt” control and a 30-band parametric equalizer must lie a sweet spot for the musically inclined listener.

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