Which is more accurate: digital or vinyl?

Lacee,

I don't know if i misunderstood you or not but i would not necessarily look to studio's as a reference for hi fidelity. I don't mean this as a blanket statement but i think it's fair to say that the goals of studio systems and home systems are slightly or greatly different. Isn't the goal of their speaker set up more as "monitors" to dissect the music to facilitate the recording process whereas home systems try to... you know, reproduce a musically satisfying sound?

Don't some studios set up speakers up high, behind mixing consoles and in positions that would be considered poor to audiophiles?

Lacee, i hear what you are saying about the "paradox of high resolution". I understand and know what you mean.

High resolution in systems CAN BE a paradox but it doesn't necessarily HAVE TO BE a paradox and certain cases isn't.

It is only when high resolution renders instruments timbres with artificial attributes that one experiences this paradox but what if the resolution goes way up but artifacts go way down at the same time?

Take for example that dylan harmonica track. First, i will mention that solid gold in the allaerts mc 1b mk2 cart creates this rich, lush, dense, tonal shading to certain instrumental timbres that you have to hear to understand.(this thing gives me a better chance/headstart at achieving the goal imho) Now what i have done and what i continue to do (when i'm up for it(not irritated by all the tweaking) is... i play back the track and try and pinpoint the unnatural artifact in the harmonica, if i note one then i try and adjust vta and vtf or cartridge torques. When i change one of those three paramaters then, naturally the others are effected and therefore a whole new range of possibilities is introduced again.(this is good news and bad news at the same time)(bad in that it increases the potential but bad because it means more tweaking!) It's a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. I try to get things sounding as best as i can with those contingencies but if the harmonica still doesn't sound real, then i go to moving cables around or interconnects, play the track and again try to pin point an artificial attribute in the timbre. Sometimes a change will introduce the attribute that is missing, like say, its correct timbral weight but in doing so i lose its resolution , in that the resolution now sounds mechanical. Ok no good...keep going! In retrospect, components that i felt weren't going to take me closer to the goal leave the system and others are introduced...so i guess it went something like this...

Years x many components x sourcing exotic components with exotic materials and designs x tweaking til the cows come home x failing x hundreds of listens x crossing my fingers x thinking...

Eventually you can dial in all the timbral attributes present in a harmonica and remove all the attributes that don't pertain to a harmonica.

How many attributes does the timbre of a harmonica have? 10, 20, 50, 100, ?

If one by one you topple each attribute and present them all at the same time what do you get? the sound of a real harmonica.

Anyways...as i am sure you will agree? resolution isn't in itself a bad thing. The question becomes of what order is the resolution? Is it mechanical, hashy, cold, clinical, like information not an instrument?

Or is it clear, neutral, uncolored, rich, natural?

Recently i discovered synergistic research cable company. The designer impressed me because he does not claim his most expensive cable is "what will do the trick" No, he grants that one of his cheaper cables "might do the trick" "better". I assume it is because he understands tweaking is necessary to find synergy and synergy is blind to dollars spent and even to materials utilized and the quantities in which they are present.

Anyways...once the harmonica is dialed in...i play a different record or genre and then poof, no more magic. Waaah!

I want to recommend to people to try solid pure gold as one of many materials to dial in good sound. Especially if you like classical, jazz,folk and vocals. These are the allaerts forte.

If...and its a big if...but it still might be true...if in order to reproduce timbres like reality a solid gold conductor is a necessary ingredient then even if a 50,000 dollar cd player wired in copper is utilized it still won't be able to reproduce reality irregardless of its price tag.

I think putting together a good system is an art as well as a "science". But...tell you guys something you didn't know!!!

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Phaelon, Frogman. Some really great points there! I like how you "tweaked" the definition of timbre, adding to it a new nuance.

So,essentially a harmonica HAS NO timbre!...that is...til it's played! (smile)

Agreed, but now there is the boundaries and limits of the degree of variation between the bodies that play it. There are alot of differences but imho the differences are not vast. We all basically know what a x brand trumpet sounds like or can learn what x brand trumpet sounds like if we wanted to and tried.

I just did a google search and i did discover what personal timbre is...

In regard to the human voice it is the unique way in which each persons vocal chords are uniquely structured/distinct and how the air uniquely resonates IN that person.

"and how the air uniquely resonates IN that person.”

Ah-Ha! And who determines how the air uniquely resonates in a wind instrument? The musician! That’s who. My formula survives the first wave. :-)

Hi guys - Frogman, thanks for your excellent post. You are so much better at explaining these things than I am. Vertigo, your last comparison to the human voice is exactly right as well. As Frogman said, the instrument becomes an extension of your body. One of my teachers talked about the need to feel "grounded" when you play, because of this. Wind instruments are very similar to the human voice. We manipulate the tone both with our airstream and with our "embouchres," or the muscles in our faces used to play. No recording really captures these subtle changes with total accuracy, which is one major reason why we musicians keep insisting that no matter how good the recording is and how good the playback system is, it is definitely not the same thing as hearing it live. And yes, the term "tone" is much more commonly used for this personal aspect of sound than "timbre." I did not use the term earlier so as not to add to the confusion, but I probably added to the confusion by not using it. Once again, I am glad I became a musician instead of a writer!

In musical instruments, no two are exactly the same.The timbre/tone were different from day of manufacture,let's look at guitars.

I've known a few guitar players who took great pains to find the "perfect" strat, yet to most they would all sound the same ,substitute tone or timbre, take your pick.
Vintage strat,Mexican vintage, far east,new USA manufactured, all sound differnt even before anyone starts to put their sonic signature to it, or start to play around with tone.

In each case some were warmer sounding , some thin, and a lot in between.Depends on the wood, the windings of the pickups the way they were set up,so many variables that make each Fender strat different from the next, never mind how they will sound when played by Hendrix, Clapton or Richard Thompson.
Each artist's style will then impose another colouration, and then in a recording session, so will the effects and electronics used to record the instruments alter those sounds even more.

I just finished reading Harley's last post in TAS, he mentions some of the flaws of modern recording process that I have eluded to before in this post and in others.

These flaws are more evident in todays recording than in the past.The better gear will accentuate these flaws as I said,lesser gear will make them more platable for the masses.

I hate to play the age card, but I grew up back in the mono record lp and tube/vinyl only period, and all my stage amps were orignally tubed.
The solid state bass amps had a lot more punch and volume, but lacked the roundness of the tube amps,now I settle for a Hybrid .Solid state amp, with tube pre section.

So for me,when I hear the way most recordings made today sound through a good hifi rig, I can hear the difference between it and the old purist recordings.

The tone of an old 50's Selmer sax,is much easier to discerne on the early recordings, as compared to some of the newer sax recordings which have been processed to make a sax sound like whatever the producer wants it to sound like.

So how can you compare anything recorded the modern way with any real instrument?
You have a better chance with older 'less'processed recordings, but you still have a lot of the sound of the real thing missing.

This is why the pursuit of accuracy can only be a pusuit to reproduce the accuracy of the recording.
And few if any of us will ever know when we have achieved the same accuracy as that of the master tape from the final mix listened thru the monitors in the studio plus the sound of the studio itself.

Sure we'll recognize the timbre of the trumpet,we can get that right in a recording and playback chain, but we've been able to do that for a long time and in fact,as Harley will support,we did it better in the past than in the here and now.

What I am saying is that when you assemble a system with the utmost care and believe me no stones were left unturned by my friend, and as far as synergy goes,synergy doesn't come by luck. He constantly improves his gear ( 40 Anniversay pre)as the gear improves he investigates how it will better his enjoyment and if it does only then is it added.
His system sounds the way it does because of the time effort and money that he spent putting it together, and it's all been about the music.

But like I keep saying, it's a double edged sword,well recorded music sounds great, poor recordings sound just what they are.
The system doesn't sugar coat the truth, it tells it like it is.

Somepeople may not like a system like that.

I do.
I don't mind listening to poorly recorded music if I like the music I can get over the way that it was recorded,but I regret that most of my favourite music has been poorly recorded,especially the music of the last couple of decades.But things do improve and some newer vinyl re-issues are worth the added cost if they stay true to the orignal and aren't over processed.

Getting back to tone and timbre,most systems even entry level do a great job at preserving both pretty much the way they were recorded, otherwise we wouldn't be able to tell if it's clarinet solo or trumpet solo.

How musicians and recording engineers can alter the tone so much kind of makes timbre seem irrelevant as far as I am concerned.
The timbre of the instrument as stated is fixed, the tones are not.They are as varied as the imagination of the artist and the producer wants them to be.And they are slaves to the recording and playback chain.

We listen to recordings, and whether they are digital or analog they are not accurate to the sound of a live unamplified, unrecorded instrument.

The deeper you get in resolution, the more you can recognize real from recorded, which doesn't takeaway any of the fun of listening to music.At least not for me.

If a system has the resoultion to let you hear the clues and studio artifacts, then you are that much closer to recreating the way the music was recorded at the time and in that space.
You are getting a better reproduction of the reproduction, warts and all.
That it is an altered form, different from how an instrument sounds in the "wild" as it were,doesn't matter to me.I accept it for what it is,and as such I know it's not the way the instrument would sound if it was played in front of me and I don't care that it doesn't.

Like I said it's a paradox,we were all brainwashed into thinking it should sound like the real thing in real time and space, when in reality, if it sounds like that in your system, it can't be real.Or in my perspective, it's not a real reproduction of the way that instrument sounded live before the air from the instrument(sax)struck the microphone diaphram and started down the road of distortions and alterations, far from the way it sounds in real life.

Again I have to state systems that do this are my preference, and this isn't the type of system for folks who just want to enjoy the music and relax.
It's mostly for the folks who take great pains experimenting with cables and power and room interaction, and it's not about just throwing a wad of cash up into the air and hoping for the best.

It's also something that evolves over the years, usually when one gains experience with a variety of components and interaction with systems better than their own, and being honest with themselves and admitting that" my system may not be the best there ever was or will be."

Can my friends system be bettered?
I am certain that it could, as certain as I know my system can be bettered,and so can everyone's.

But we all have to stop someplace,I can't speak for my friend,but I am almost done and I am indebted to him for shedding light on areas that needed to be addressed which I never considered as relevant.

Having learned from his experience,my system improved beyond what it was and now shares the same basic concepts as his.Granted to a lesser degree.

And as such,they are not accurate to the original instrument, and on a revealing system the differences are there