[Re: Vinyl/CD], they can't hear

[Doug Tymofichuk]

On Fri, 28 May 1999 08:53:09 +0200 (MET DST) Martin Czech 
<martin.czech at intermetall.de> wrote:
> 
> They can't hear it anyway....
> 
> But most musicians are not educated to decide between 
> slightly different sounds....
> It is very likely that we synth-diy people have a lot of 
> listening practise, so we are very sensitive to 
> artefacts....
> 
I completely agree with this!  After spending many years 
repairing audio equipment, I have become insanely sensitive 
to things like wow, flutter, and crossover distortion. This 
allows me to be better at repairs, but causes problems with 
musical enjoyment when listening to low quality systems. 
Also, my brain sometimes mistakes the pitch variations in 
vibrato as wow and flutter, which drives me crazy!

I believe that you can "train" your ears in many ways, and 
this is why some people can readily hear subtle differences 
in things such as speaker cables while others hear nothing. 
If you are used to the sound of "natural" music (real 
acoustic instruments played live), then you will prefer 
analog reproduction systems in spite of their faults. If 
you primarily are exposed to "electronic" music then you 
will be more forgiving of digital distortions and may 
actually prefer that type of sound.
----------------------
Doug Tymofichuk
dougt at cancerboard.ab.ca