who wants tone controls on your next preamp?

IMHO the anti-tone control crowd is blind to the fact that everything else in their system including the room acts as its own tone control. Couple this with the undeniable fact that most most recordings have already had tone controls (EQ) applied results in the following. If tone controls, EQ, or whatever adds to your enjoyment of a particular recording then it is the proper thing to do.

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Zydo, equating antiquated devices like those you mentioned with what can be accomplished today with modern tone controls and computer EQ is like comparing the performance of a Ford model T to a Ferrari.

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No doubt, every recording we have is an altered version of reality, an altered version of the absolute. That wasn't my point. My point was if we could reproduce the original sound exactly then hearing differences don't factor in.

The argument that was presented was that the pursuit of the absolute is pointless because we all hear differently. I say that makes no difference. If we hear the same source then even if we hear it differently we should be able to tell when it changes. Your absolute and mine may differ, our brains may interpret the sound of a trumpet being played in front of us in a different manner, but we should both be able to tell when the sound of that particular trumpet changes.

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I disagree. Let's say you have somebody in your room singing a song. Even if we all hear it differently we are all hearing the same thing. If you could record it and play it back so the exact same sound waves were produced (absolute sound) then we would all say we were hearing an exact copy even if we all heard it differently.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with altering the sound to suit personal taste, but it would be nice to start with an exact copy of the original.

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Naive? please. You completely missed the point of my post.

The poster stated that since you and I hear differently then there is no absolute. I was refuting that idea, not that we would know what all original performances sound like. I stated that if we heard the exact same thing, even though our auditory systems might process it differently, if we heard the exact same thing again we would recognize it. That has nothing to do with traceability to the original performances of my recordings.

So yes, there is an absolute, or ideal as you put it. If our systems were ideal then we would be able to record a trumpet player standing in front of the room or any other sound and play it back and it would sound exactly the same. Jumping from that idea to assuming I though I would be able to know what every original performance sounded like is a bit of a stretch.

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Carlos, you are absolutely correct. The recording IS part of the ideal. How could it be any other way? Just because it is out my control does not mean it isn't part of the equation. Given a perfect signal which perfectly encodes the sound of a trumpet an ideal system would decode it and sound exactly like that trumpet. It doesn't matter that I didn't hear the original sound. If I had not I wouldn't be able to tell you if it was exactly like the original, but either it is or it isn't.

When I cook something from a Julia Child recipe does it taste exactly like hers? I have no way to know but just because I have no way to confirm it either way doesn't mean it definitely does not. I would like to think that it does :>)

So once again, yes, there is an absolute, or ideal if you wish. I seriously doubt it can be obtained, but it is there.

check, and mate.
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Carlos, I have been very civil. No need to be condescending.

The pursuit of the absolute sound is trying to recreate perfectly what was being played elsewhere. Nobody has said or even hinted that it has been done. You have listed a lot of reasons why it is at the very least extremely difficult and probably can't be done, but that completely misses the point. The fact we haven't come close to doing it doesn't mean it can't be done or isn't a worthwhile pursuit. A note played on an instrument does create compressions and rarefactions in the air that theoretically we might be able to perfectly reproduce. I doubt it can be and you are convinced it can't be done but you can't logically argue that the sound never existed. It most certainly did no matter what principles you apply.

No problem. I'm on the same page with the uncertainty. I work on medical electronics for a living and taught it before that. One of the first things we would discuss when talking about measurements was that in order to measure anything you must disturb it or extract energy from it which alters what it is you are trying to measure.

I also agree that the realization of the absolute sound in the sense that is 100% the same is most certainly impossible. Another factor often ignored is that unless you are blind or have your eyes closed a live event is a visual experience too, not to mention the odors that wafted through the venue when I attended rock concerts in the 70's and 80's and the feeling of being jostled about in huge crowd.. Recreating that would be a neat trick.

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