
Are You On The Road To... Audio Hell?
Article By Leonard Norwitz and Peter Qvortrup of Audio Note UK

The Quiz
We audiophiles are always trying to sharpen
our skills at evaluating audio components. However, the very methods
we use can result in precisely the opposite of the effect desired, namely
boredom or frustration with our audio system before we have even paid for
it; in other words, AUDIO HELL. Take the following short
quiz to help determine if you have traveled this road lately.
1. Do you try to arrange instantaneous A/B comparisons of brief
segments of music to maximize your memory retention?
2. Do you bring the same group of "reference" test
recordings to each audition in an effort to sort out specific performance
capabilities and to prevent any disorientation of confusion which could
result from using music with which you are unfamiliar?
3. Do you avoid using music of which you are particularly fond
so that you can properly attend to objective analysis rather than be
distracted by the music's pleasures and passions?
4. Do you believe that the true function of an audio
system is to re-create music; and that therefore you can only
accurately evaluate audio playback if you have an extensive knowledge of
live music performance?
5. Do you believe that if your evaluation addresses such
matters as frequency range, signal/noise ratio, stage size and depth,
instrumental separation and balance, timbre, and textual clarity that
whatever other purely musical considerations there may be will take care of
themselves?
6. Has it been your experience that some speakers are especially suitable for rock, others for classical, and perhaps others
for intimate jazz? How do you explain this phenomenon? Is this
more or less inevitable?
7. When you ask yourself; "What should be the
correct reference, live music or the recording session?" Do you
conclude that it is one or the other? Are you comfortable with you
answer to this question?
If you have answered "yes" to at least three of these questions,
you can feel comfortable knowing that, like many other audiophiles, you are
on the train to AUDIO HELL. If you answered "yes" to most, you may
be beyond redemption; but we are here to help, and there is always
hope. If you answered "yes" to question #3 you probably require
the services of an audio exorcist; for if the purpose of your music playback
system isn't to involve you emotionally, then why aren't you shopping at
Sears? Before we take a more critical look at the implications of this quiz
and your answer, it might be useful to go review the past few years to see
how we got into this mess in the first place.

A Brief History
As the audio industry grew out of its infancy in the 1950's and began to
aspire to commercialism in the 1960's, an evaluation and review procedure
was adopted which initially attempted to mate the measured superiority of
the developing technologies with the goal of better sound quality. It
appeared that a conspiracy of purpose was entered into by the press and many
companies in the industry based on the thesis that technical perfection also led to sonic perfection.
This thesis had the advantage that winners in the performance race could
easily be decided by the evidence of such measurements. Such
"proof" made possible facile marketing strategies which have
persisted to the present despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary
provided by our own ears in the most casual of listening auditions. By the
mid-1970's the development of this thesis had reached a stage with audio
components where technical specifications were making further improvements
practically impossible. The race for lower distortion, faster slew
rates, better damping factors, wider bandwidths, and more power had caught
up with itself and ground to a halt.
At about this point, a number of smaller publications appeared which
abandoned this thesis of measured performance (a kind of technical
perfection) in favor of a more subjective approach in which listening to
music through the components was considered the more useful tool; and
its approximation to "live music" its most sought after criteria.
The editorial position of some of these new "underground"
magazines considered measurements as irrelevant or even damaging to the
evaluation process, observing that audio components which measure the same
can sound strikingly different. The result was that the method of
auditioning equipment became more complicated; magazine reviewers
spent hours listening to and comparing different components in order to
decide which sounded best. Out of this history was born the "Golden
Ear" upon whose judgment many consumers trusted with their available
income. Every month a new product would appear which was hailed as the
"best sound" and frequently the opinions of different magazine
experts varied widely. Consumers might then chose and expert that they
trusted, or become increasingly confused, or give up altogether returning to
the safer criteria of measurements.
By the mid-1980's the merry-go-round had reached such a pace that most
manufacturers resorted to placing their efforts in the tried and true
marketplace of seductive advertising slogans and images, and hi-tech
cosmetics and gadgetry. It had become too difficult to compete otherwise.
The rule was that if the component and its advertised image looked
expensive, then it must sound good as well. (Not least of the
distractions the audio community has suffered was the switch from analog to
digital, which led to such manifestly preposterous notions as "digital
ready" speakers and amplifiers, as well as a nearly successful campaign
to re-write the definition as well as the experience of the term
"dynamic.")
As far as we know, there has been no rigorous critique of the critical
methodology long in place, a method which we believe has contributed to the
audio hell in which most of us find ourselves. None of the current
methods now in favor: measurements and specifications, blind tests,
double-blind tests, boogie factors, or comparisons to "real"
music, have been definitive. Nor has there been a serious alternative
offered which categorically presents an orderly, reasonably conclusive
methodology by which we can evaluate our components and playback systems.
This is exactly what we propose in this essay.
We believe that the basic reason why so many consumers are in AUDIO HELL
or on their way is that they are confused about what should be the objective
of their audio system, and therefore have adopted a method for the
evaluation of audio components which often turns out to be
counter-productive. If you agree that the goal of you audio system should be
to involve us emotionally, physiologically, and intellectually with a
musical performance, then we would like to suggest the following description
for its objective:

An Ideal Audio System Should
Re-Create
An Exact Acoustical Analog Of The Recorded Program
If so, then it would be very useful if we had meaningful knowledge of
exactly what is encoded on our recordings. Unfortunately, such is not
possible. (This assertion may appear casually stated, but on its truth
depends much if the following argument; we therefore invite the
closest possible scrutiny.) Even if we were present at every recording
session, we would have no way of interpreting the electrical information
which feeds through the microphones to the master tape let alone to the
resulting CD or LP into a sensory experience against which we could
evaluate a given audio system. Even if we were present at playback sessions
through the engineer's monitoring (read: "presumed reference")
system, we would be unable to transfer that experience to any other system
evaluation. And even if we could hold the impression of that monitoring
experience in our minds and account for venue variables such knowledge would
turn out to be irrelevant in determining system or component accuracy since
the monitoring equipment could not have been accurate in the first
place. (More about this shortly.) But if this is true, how can we
properly evaluate the relative accuracy of any playback system or component?
The Old Method:
Comparison By Reference
We should begin by examining the method in current favor: The usual
procedure is to use one or more favored recording and playing slices of them
on two different systems (or the same system alternating two components,
which amounts to the same thing); and then deciding which system (or
component) you like better, or which one more closely matches your belief
about some internalized reference, or which one "tells you more"
about the music on the recording. It won't work! ...not even if you use a
dozen recordings of resumed pedigree ... not even if you compare for stage
size, frequency range, transient response tonal correctness, instrument
placement, clarity of text, etc. not even if you compare your memory of
you emotional response with one system to that of another It makes little
difference. The practical result will be the same: What you will learn is
which system (or component) more closely matches your prejudice about the
way a given recording ought to sound. And since neither the recordings nor
the components we use are accurate to begin with, then this method cannot
tell us which system is more accurate! It is methodological treason to
evaluate something for accuracy against a reference with tools which are
inaccurate not least of which is our memory of acoustical data.
Therefore it is very-likely-to-the-point-of-certainty that a positive
response to a system using this method is the result of a pleasing
complimentarily between recording playback system, experience, memory, and
expectation; all of which is very unlikely to be duplicated due to the
extraordinarily wide variation which exists in recording method and
manufacture. (Ask yourself, when you come across a component of system which
plays many of your "reference" recordings well, if it also plays
all your recordings well. The answer is probably "no;" and the explanation we usually offer puts the blame on the other
recordings, not the playback system. And, no, we're not going to argue that
all recordings are good; but that all recordings are much better than you
have let yourself believe.)
Recognizing that many will consider these statements as audiophile
heresy; we urge you to keep in mind our mutual objective: to prevent
boredom and frustration, and to keep our interest in upgrading our playback
system enjoyable and on track. To this end it becomes necessary that we lay
aside our need to have verified in our methodology beliefs about the way our
recordings and playback systems ought to sound. As we shall see, marriage to
such beliefs practically guarantees us passage to AUDIO HELL. It is our
contention that, while nothing in the recording or playback chain is
accurate, accuracy is the only worthwhile objective; for when playback
is as accurate as possible, the chances for maximum recovery of the
recorded program is greatest; and when we have as much of that recording to
hand or to ear then we have the greatest chance for an intimate
experience with the recorded performance. It only remains to describe
a methodology which improves that likelihood. (This follows shortly.)
Listeners claiming an inside track by virtue of having attended the
recording session are really responding to other, perhaps unconscious, clues
when they report significant similarities between recording session and
playback. As previously asserted, no one can possibly know in any meaningful
way what is on the master tape or the resulting software, even if they
auditioned the playback through the engineer's "reference"
monitoring system. Anyone who thinks that there exists some
"reference" playback system that sounds just like the live event
simply isn't paying attention: or at best doesn't understand how magic
works. After all, if it weren't for the power of suggestion, hi-fi would
have been denounced decades ago as a fraud. Remember those experiments put
on by various hi fi promoters in the fifties in which most of the audience
"thought" they were listening to a live performance until the
drawing of the curtain revealed the Wizard up to his usual tricks. The truth
is the audience "thought" no such thing; they merely went along
for the ride without giving what they were hearing any critical thought at
all.
It is the nature of our psychology to believe what we see and to
"hear" what we expect to hear. Only cynics and paranoids point out
fallibility when everyone else is having a good time.
Another relevant misunderstanding involves the correct function of
"monitoring equipment." The purpose of such equipment is to
get an idea of how whatever is being recorded will play back on a known
system and then to make adjustments in recording procedure. It should never
be understood by either the recording producer or the buyer that the
monitoring system is either definitive or accurate, even thought the
engineer makes all sorts of placement and equipment decisions based on what
their monitoring playback reveals. They have to use something, after all,
and the best recording companies go to great lengths to make use of
monitoring equipment that tells them as much as possible about what they are
doing. But no matter what monitoring components are used, they can
never be the last word on the subject, and it is entirely possible to
achieve more realistic results with a totally different playback
system, for example a more accurate one. Notice "more accurate,"
not accurate. It bears repeating that there is no such thing as an accurate
system, nor an accurate component, nor an accurate recording. Yet as
axiomatic as any audiophile believes these assertions to be, they are
instantly forgotten the moment we begin a critical audition.
The Proposed Method: Comparison By Contrast
When auditioning only two playback systems using the usual method,
we will have a least a 50% chance of choosing the one which is more
accurate. However, evaluations of single components willy-nilly test
the entire playback chain; therefore efforts to choose the more accurate
component are compounded by the likelihood that we will be equally uncertain
as to the accuracy of each of the systems associated components if for no
reasons that that they were chosen by a method which guarantees
prejudice. How can we have any confidence that having chosen one
component by such a method that its presence in the system won't mislead us
when evaluating other components on the playback chain, present or future?
The way to sort out which system or component is more accurate is to
invert the test. Instead of comparing a handful or recordings presumed to
be definitive on two different systems to determine which one coincides
with our present feeling about the way that music ought to sound, play a
larger number of recordings of vastly different styles and recording
technique on two different systems to hear which system reveals more
differences between the recordings. This is a procedure which anyone with
ears can make use of, but requires letting go of some of our favored
practices and prejudices.
In more detail, it would go something like this; Line up about two dozen
recordings of different kinds of music pop vocal, orchestral, jazz,
chamber music, folk, rock, opera, piano music you like, but recordings of
which you are unfamiliar. (It is very important to avoid your favorite
"test" recordings presuming that they will tell you what you need
to know about some performance parameter or other, because doing so will
likely only serve to confirm or deny an expectation based on prior
"performances" you have heard on other systems or components. More
later.) First with one system and then the other, play through
complete numbers from all of these in one sitting. (The two systems may be
entirely different or have only one variable such as cables, amplifier, or
speaker.)
The More Accurate System Is
The One Which Reproduces More Difference
More Contrast Between The Various Program Sources.
To suggest a simplified example, imagine a 1940's wind-up phonograph
playing recordings of Al Jolson singing "Swanee" and The
Philadelphia Orchestra playing Beethoven. The playback from these recordings
will sound more alike than LP versions of these very recordings played back
through a reasonably good modern audio system. Correct? What we're
after is a playback system which maximizes those difference.
Some orchestral recordings, for example, will present stages beyond the
the confines of the speaker borders, others tend to gather between the
speakers; some will seem to articulate instruments in space; others present
them in a mass as if perceived from a balcony; some will present the winds
recessed deep into the orchestra; others up front; some will overwhelm us
with a bass drum of tremendous power; others barely distinguish between the
character of tympani and bass drum. In respect to our critical evaluation
process, it is of absolutely no consequence that these differences may have
resulted from performing style or recording methodology and manufacture, or
that they may have completely misrepresented the actual live event.
Therefore when comparing two speaker systems, it would be a mistake to
assume that the one which always presents a gigantic stage well beyond the
confines of the speakers, for example, is more accurate. You might
like even prefer what that system does to staging, but the other
speaker, because it is realizing differences between recordings, is very
likely more accurate, and in respect to all the other variables from
recording to recording, may turn out to be more revealing of the
performance.
Some pop vocal recordings present us with resonant voices, others
dry; some as part of the instrumental texture, others envelope us leaving
the accompanying instruments and vocals well in the background; some are
nasal, some gravelly, some metallic, others warm. The "Comparison by
Reference" method would have us respond positively to that playback
system, together with the associated "reference" recording, that
achieves a pre-conceived notion of how the vocal is presented and how it
sounds in relation to the instruments in regards to such parameters as
relative size, shape, level, weight, definition, et al. Over time we
find ourselves preferring a particular presentation of pop vocal (or
orchestral balance, or rock thwack, or jazz intimacy, or piano
percussiveness you name it) and infer a correctness when approximated by
certain recordings.
We then compound our mistake by raising these recordings to reference
status (pace' Prof. Johnson) and then seek this "correct"
presentation from every system we later evaluate; and if it isn't there, we
are likely to dismiss that system as incorrect. The problem is that
since neither recording nor playback system was accurate to begin with, the
expectation that late systems should comply is dangerous. In fact, if
their presentations are consistently similar, then they must be inaccurate
by definition simply because either by default or intention no two
recordings are exactly similar. And while there are other important criteria
which any satisfactory audio component or system must satisfy absence of
fatigue being one of the most essential very little is not subsumed by
the new method of comparison offered here.
The Hell Of Conformity
The methodology of Comparison By Reference will necessarily result in an
audio system which imbues a sameness, a sonic signature or sorts, that
ultimately leads to the boredom which illuminates AUDIO HELL. The
explanation for this lies in the fact that there are qualitative differences
from recording to recording regardless of the style of music which
have the potential to be realized or not depending on the capability of the
playback system. (This is one of the undisputed area where the superiority
of LP to CD is evident, in that there is any immeasurable, but clearly
audible sameness a sonic conformity of sorts from CD to CD which does
not persist to a similar degree with LP.)
A significant part of the attraction to CD is its conformity to an
amusical sense of perfection and repeatability; no mistake in performance
and a combined recording and playback "noise" lower than the
ambient noise existing in any acoustical environment where real music is
enjoyed. (This should not be taken as a "sour grapes" apology for
LP surface noises.) We all know listeners whose entire attention in an
audio system evaluation is directed to the presence of noise or the need for
absolute sameness from playback to playback rather than on the playback of
music. Their common complaint is "this recording didn't sound that way
the last time i heard it. "Have you ever considered that the
search for perfection and the need for conformity are head and tail of the
same coin, doubtless minted in the worst part of our human character? It
remain only for us to be aware of how these "virtues" operate on
us, how we are used by then, and in turn make ourselves into something that
much less human. (Star Trek has been addressing these issues since the First
Generation.) Perhaps civilization's greatest enemy is not war,
disease, or stress, after all,; it's boredom! This is why we must take
the time from our daily routines to relax and reinvigorate ourselves by
listening (for those of us not talented enough to play) to music. For
this to happen effectively, the playback equipment must ensure the
individuality of each recording. Otherwise, boredom a very close relation
to conformity and a direct descendant of colorized, sanitized sound will
result. This stuff is as subtle as it is insidious; it will always be there
for us to grapple with; and we must or we will end up like the
tranquillizing acoustic wallpaper much or music is rapidly becoming... or
worse.
Encouragement Required
Qualitative difference are easily ignored if our methodology and goal is
to achieve an identity with a reference will make for some awkward moments
as we trek out trying to sort out matters of contrast. The latter
requires a much broader attention span and invites every conceivable
intellectual and emotional connection we can make with not just one or two
recordings but many, and not just with their analogous counterparts in genre
but with a range of wildly different styles, venues, and recording method.
When our attention is directed to similarities [between that which is
under evaluation and another system, or our memory of a live music
reference, or of the "best-ever" audio], we naturally focus on
vertical (frequency domain) or static (staging) determinants. But the sonic
signature of sameness is not only to be found in the frequency domain, which
is where we usually think of looking for it and wherein we try to sort out
tonal correctness, but in the time domain, where dynamic contrast lives.
When our attention is directed to contrasts, we are more likely to focus on
musical flows, dynamic resolution, and instrumental and vocal interplay.
When we compare for what we take to be tonal correctness using the
Comparison by Reference method, we will end up with results not likely to
have been on the recording, but rather the effect of the complimentarily
referred to earlier. When a system is found wanting because it does
not uniformly reproduce large stages or warm voices, we will end up with a
system which will compromise other aspects of accuracy, for not all
recordings are capable in themselves of reproducing large stages or warm
voices. When a playback system can reproduce gigantic stages or warm voices
from some recordings and flat, constrained stages or cool voices from
others, it follows that such a system is not getting in the way of those
characteristics.
Using this method of evaluation takes some time, and some getting use to;
but then we audiophiles have been known to spend hours sorting out the
benefits or damage caused by AC conditioner or isolation devices. More to
the point, after the two or three hours it takes to compare any two components by
this method, we will have ruled out one of them, permanently! And if
we find that neither is the decisive winner then we can probably conclude
that they are both sufficiently inaccurate as to exclude either from further
consideration. In other words, we now have a method by which we can
guarantee the correct direction of upgrade toward a more accurate system.
Detail And Resolution
We'd like to briefly examine one of the more interesting misperceptions common to audio critique. Many listeners
speak of a playback system's revolving power in terms of its ability
to articulate detail, i.e. previously un-noticed phenomena. However,
it's more likely that what these listeners are responding to when they say
such-and-such has more "detail" is: un-connected micro-events in
the frequency and time domains. (These are events that, if they were
properly connected, would have realized the correct presentation of harmonic
structure, attack, and legato.) Because these events are of incredibly
short duration and because there is absolutely no analog to such events in
the natural world and are now being revealed to then by the sheer excellence
of their audio, these listeners believe that they are hearing something for
the first time, which they are! And largely because of this, they are
more easily misled into a belief that what they are hearing is relevant and
correct. The matter is aided and abetted by the apparentness of the
perception. The "details" are undeniably there; it is only their
meaning which has become subverted. The truth is that we only perceive such
"detail" from an audio playback system; but never in a live
musical performance.
"Resolution" on the other hand is the effect produced when these micro-events are connected.... in other words,
when the events are so small that detail is unperceivable. When these events
are correctly connected, we experience a more accurate sense of a musical
performance. This is not unlike the way in which we perceive the
difference between video and film. Video would seen to have more detail,
more apparent individual visual events; but film obviously has greater
resolution. If it weren't for the fact that detail in video is made up such
large particles as compared to the micro-events which exist in audio, we
might not have been misled about the term "detail", and would have
called it by its proper name which is "grain". Grain creates the
perception of more events, particularly in the treble region, because they
are made to stand out from the musical texture in an un-naturally
highlighted form. In true high-resolution audio systems, grain disappears
and is replaced by a seamless flow of connected musical happenings.

Development
Returning to our suggested methodology let's call it "Comparison
by Contrast" we strongly urge resisting the reflex to compare two
systems using a single recording. This may require a few practice sessions
comparing collections of recordings until you have been purged of the A/B
habit, which tends to foster vertical rather that linear, attention to the
music. If you listen analytically to brief segments of music,
switching back and forth, there is no possible way to get a sense of its
flow and purpose in purely musical terms. Music and its performance (which
are or ought to be inseparable) are very much about the developments of
expectations which are subsequently prolonged or denied. It is not possible
to respond to this aspect of music in an A/B comparison; and it may come as
a surprise that an ability to convey this very quality of musical drama is
the single most important distinguishing characteristic of audio systems or
components.
By using the Comparison by Contrast method of evaluating components, we
have in place a reliable procedure for sorting out the rest of the
playback chain even in a pre-existing system whose components have not yet
been put to the same test. Once you have ruled in a component as being
more accurate, it will fall out that some aspect of the sound will be less
than completely satisfactory simply because the more accurate the component,
the more revealing of the entire playback chain whose errors become more
apparent. The next step is to pick a component of a different function in
the system It is usually easier and more revealing to work from the
source and repeat the Comparison by Contrast method for each component in
turn. This includes cables, line conditioners, RF filter, isolation devices,
etc. as well as amplifiers, speaker, and source components.
The methodology of Comparison by Reference leaves us without a clue as to
how to proceed when the inevitable boredom and frustration resulting from
its compromises set in. The Comparison by contrast method, which also
results in compromise as any audio system must, will always offer more hints
of a live performance for this is what is usually recorded since it
has enabled us to get closer to the recording. And as more components are
substituted using Comparison by Contrast, the result will always
be positive in greater proportion to Comparison by Reference.
By the way, a delightful outcome of continuing to advance your system by
the Contrast method is that you will not only be required to broaden your
supply of hitherto unfamiliar recordings to comply with the method, you will
also find that your own library is already replete with recordings whose
sonics are much better than you had previously given credit. In this way you
will not only become better acquainted with a hitherto back-shelved portion
of your collection, you will discover how much more exciting music is
immediately available to you; and voila AUDIO HEAVEN.
The false prophet which diverts may audiophiles from the road to AUDIO
HEAVEN is the notion that their audio system ought to portray each type of
music in a certain way regardless of the recording methodology. An accurate
playback system plays back the music as it was recorded onto the specific
disc or LP being played; it does not re-interpret this information to
coincide with some prejudice about the way music ought to sound through an
audio system. (This explains why many people think that some speakers are
especially suitable for rock and others for classical; if so, both are
inaccurate). To put it another way, you can't turn a toad into a prince
without having turned some rabbits into rats.
Only if your audio system is designed to be as accurate as possible
that is, only if it is dedicated to high contrast reproduction can it
hope to recover the uniqueness of any recorded musical performance. Only then can it possibly achieve for the listener an emotional connection
with any and every recording no matter the instrumental or vocal medium
and no matter the message. Boredom and frustration are the inevitable
alternatives.
Think about it.