Michael Fremer defends Hi-Res digital while chewing out Gizmodo

I find this post and more so, your previous post interesting. Mostly, your observation that marketing of indie bands is best left to vinyl as CD's have given way to streaming. When I go into a used record store, most people I see are young people, this would have been true with Peaches 25-years ago, nothing new here.

I find that music of an era, generally sounds "right" played on equipment of that era. If I was listening to music from the 30's, a nice 78 recording, played on a gramophone, it would seem more "realistic" of that era. Music from the 50's through the middle 60's sounds right on tube amps and speakers with large cabinets. Rock music tends to sound authentic played with solid state amps and PA speakers.

I think that music that I have listened to 40-years ago still sounds best on vinyl, but maybe it's just listening to it today and remembering that is how it sounded forty years ago. A lot of CD's of music from the rock era just do not sound right to me and I have also listened to many of the bands live.

More modern music, that is music created in the era of CD's when there was no vinyl, sounds more realistic to me when played digitally. This is music intended from the beginning to have more representation of HF and LF information, not as much emphasis on the mids.

I just dug out a LP recording of Grimes, definitely a modern indie band that I have listened to on streaming paid Pandora and on her CD.

I am very interested in listening to her on vinyl, I am curious how her vinyl sounds when compared to her CD.

In your opinion, is vinyl with the indie young generation being listened to on Crosley's (I don't have any issues with that, you have to start somewhere) or are some starting to make that upward climb?

 

I'm not sure what he said is really accurate since Fremer has asserted numerous times that vinyl is technically superior to CDs

 

The post I quoted was referencing Art Garfunkel, not Fremer.

 

ah ok my mistake

 

I know quite a few young music heads who have put together pretty decent systems for themselves. No Crosley ownership that I know of. New records are fairly expensive. Only a fool would put one on an infernal vinyl-chewing machine like a Crosley!

 

likewise, and some have even been smart enough to go looking for really good 70s and 80s Japanese equipment rather than buying one of the crappy modern day turntables out there. I think the Crosley is more for the crowd that really only knows about vinyl because there's a bin in their local Urban Outfitters.

 

Another scorched earth thread. I see it's veering onto the same topic as another recently singed thread. Fun!

 

I want this on a bumper sticker.

 

Indeed he has. For the sake of all this finger pointing, it was me that said MF engages in pseudoscience (and I'm certainly not the only one going by many other forums), and I did provide some examples of the pseudoscience (def - is a claim, belief or practice which is incorrectly presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status) - not that it was necessary, anyone with a bit of technical audio knowledge can see that just by spending 5 minutes on his website. If that enrages the likes of Wheeler, so be it but please refrain from accusing me for vilifying the guy, rather than giving a view on his stated opinions, which is what they are as there is no real science behind it.

 

OK ..... If I knew post #492 would lead to this, I may have had second thoughts.
Anyway ..... Motion, thanks for the support ....... Scott, I appreciate the critique.
I'm done for good here ....
Adios.

 

The guy is an audio reviewer. To say he doesn't adhere to a valid scientific method is absurd since he is not doing scientific research. It just doesn't apply. He reports on equipment and records and offers subjective impressions in his reviews.

So are movie critics and restaurant reviewers also engaging in pseudoscience because they "do not adhere to a valid scientific method"?

You are giving your opinion on his stated opinions and I am giving my view on your stated opinions. For the record that is not a scientific claim.....

 

Depends on the context and how likely telling me I'm lying is about to irritate me. Considering that this is a silly thread on a silly subject, it isn't worth savaging others for making comments that momentarily irritate me. Does Fremer say things that honk other people off? Yes. How important is his little sector of the world? Not worth getting passionate over.

 

The examples I gave did not refer to subjective impressions. I agree that a lot of his stuff (well at least as far as I read it) is subjective. Subjectivity as it is very useful, particularly if the reviewer has the same tastes as the person who goes by it, whether it be food, travel, music or whatever, as a helpful guide. So no, in that regard, I really don't have a problem with MF and his particular taste in sound which appeals to that audience. However, when the line is crossed and someone bases a preference on technical grounds (such as a discussion on digital filters, or technical merits of a format (as apposed to whether someone just likes that particular sound) which is either wrong, misplaced or cannot be supported by the technics, then that is pseudoscience. But like I said, I don't believe calling someone out on these things amounts to vilification. I don't even know the guy, he could be a very decent and smart chap, but I'd still call him out.

 

I don't think Fremer has ever crossed that line. His preferences are based on what he hears,
and sometimes it's necessary to speculate in print why you hear the differences you perceive.
For those who read him regularly, and "get" where he is coming from he appears a sane and
rational source in a sea of subjectivity and opinions based on marketing claims.

 

I guess I sound a lot more "passionate" in my posts than I actually feel when I write them. My passion this week is in seeing the entire Beethoven symphonic cycle at Disney Hall. I'm not really *feeling* much one way or another about these discussions.

 

I am sorry, I must have missed those examples. I don't believe "calling someone out" on claims that are clearly intended to be taken as scientific but are clearly pseudoscientific is wrong either. I am all for that.

A comment on "technical merits" Things that are "technical" in audio are objective in nature. The abstract idea of "merit" is subjective in nature. If MF is making claims of "technical superiority" of vinyl it is not unreasonable or pseudoscientific to say so on the grounds that for him vinyl consistently achieves an aesthetically superior sound when all the other variables are the same. Objective measurements per se have no intrinsic objective goals or benchmarks. Those goals and benchmarks are all set by making subjective choices as to what they should be. We can say objectively that things measure the same or differently but we can't objectively say anything measures better or worse without subjectively setting an ideal or desired direction. So any discussion of technical superiority has to have that reality taken into consideration.

There is an old adage in audio. If a component measures "better" but sounds "worse" you are measuring the wrong things. I think it could also be said that one is misinterpreting what constitutes a "better" measurement and a "worse" measurement.

 

Agreed.

Interesting thought, could you please clarify? So you're suggesting that the industry is not opposed to the vinyl resurgence because vinyl doesn't seriously threaten to intrude on the higher margins of the digital market?

 

I encourage everyone to remember that, in the midst of all this talk about science not lending anything to the task of assessing the subjective quality of a recorded music listening experience, without science we wouldn't have all this wondrous technology in the first place.

 

I really enjoyed this paper, and I thought the scientific method was well executed. One question though: What did they mean by a 'loop'?

 

This is a complex topic for me personally. On one hand, I like vinyl for the more 'simple' reasons Garfunkel pointed out, and I acknowledge that many people prefer vinyl for mostly if not all of those reasons. But the truth is that I have a psychological preference for vinyl when it's all-analog. If a record is sourced from digital, I'm happy with a digital format, which is probably because in several A/B comparisons of digital and vinyl copies of the same album, I found it quite difficult to detect the subtle differences between them. In these comparisons, I can't help but wonder if the same mastering was used for both. Other comparisons though (much less if we're talking about 'modern' music) have produced a more marked difference between the sonic signatures of the digital and vinyl copies, and accordingly I have to assume that the vinyl had a separate mastering.

Admittedly, part of the magic of vinyl for me is in the idea (I suppose I should stress 'idea') of the all-analog chain. This is also why I (perhaps strangely) only record vinyl to tape and never digitally.

 

Agreed.

Totally. It's so easy to be rude on the internet. I'm fascinated by the way in which online communication seems to exacerbate our pride and desire to be authoritative.

Boo.

 

Aside from the attempts at the HK labs in their speaker evaluations (misguided attempts IMO ) who has actually even been trying to be scientific in assessing the subjective quality of a recorded music experience?

And what is the connection between "science lending anything to the task of assessing the subjective quality of a recorded music listening experience" and "without science we wouldn't have all this wondrous technology in the first place?"

It looks like a bit of a non sequitur to me. Maybe I am missing something...

I like the idea of trying some sort of scientific approach to evaluating subjective perceptions of SQ and correlating that data with objective measurements. But I would expect that to be a monumental task beyond the resources of most producers of audio equipment or commercial music. Not to mention audio journals or reviewers.

 

Ultimately what we enjoy resides in our heads. so believe it or not I can respect this reason for wanting AAA vinyl more than just about any other reason.