The "squeeze" effect

[beck]

Or how I realised what is going on in the world of hifi through listening to a 60 kroner mono FM radio.

On the 22. oktober 2017 I have been a member of this forum for 5 years. I had some ideas about what my goal was with my system when I started but not a clear way to get there.
Through discussions, evaluation of clips, changes of setup and more I have ended where I wanted to end.

My main question to myself has always been: Why do music through my hifi system sound different to the music I hear at work playing and teaching music. What is the difference?
I would expect a scaled down version of what I hear at work to come out of my speakers. Less loud but with enough of the same characteristics to make me feel "at home" listening to music.

Now I feel "at home" listening to music through my system but only when playing analog recordings. So what is it that digital does to the music signal that I react to?

I have for a long time been thinking about why my mono FM radio was so lovely to listen to. Voices and music make so much sense coming out of its small speaker.

One day I took my ipad and found the same program on both the ipad and my FM radio. It was just a speaker talking but the difference was striking.
While the FM radio had a singing quality to the speech the ipad talked much more in a monotone non singing way.

With this in mind I started listening to my record collection again and now it became clear to me that my AAA recordings had a more "singing" character than my AAD recordings.
Imagine the original music being squeezed a little making the intervals between notes shrink and the timing of the sounds being pushed/pulled away from each other ever so slightly.


I talked to a friend about this and he turned my attention towards paintings. He told me that painters often would make a little error in the perspective of a painting (ad a weird shadow or something else) to make people look more carefully at the picture making it more interesting. The logic being that a perfect picture would quickly be decoded by our brain as something we know but a small error would make it much more interesting to look at. Our brain would be puzzled when looking at it.

Does the above change anything (if true) to all the happy listeners and owners of great hifi systems around the world?

I would say no.

It can however give the unhappy owners of hifi something to think about. Maybe they are sensitive to the same things that have puzzled me.

[Charlie1]

I'm not sure if it's the same thing but I find modern digital recordings on LP have a kind of simplified sound. They lack the same level of realism and subtleties. Whereas, an old digitally recorded LP, such as 'Solitude Standing', has much more going for it, even though it's a 16-bit recording. Perhaps they applied less processing back then or were more skilled at the transfer to vinyl.

Modern digital recordings can still sound tuneful, but no where near most analogue recordings, to my ears anyway.

[beck]

I'm not sure if it's the same thing but I find modern digital recordings on LP have a kind of simplified sound. They lack the same level of realism and subtleties. Whereas, an old digitally recorded LP, such as 'Solitude Standing', has much more going for it, even though it's a 16-bit recording. Perhaps they applied less processing back then or were more skilled at the transfer to vinyl.

Modern digital recordings can still sound tuneful, but no where near most analogue recordings, to my ears anyway.

We agree that early digital did "intrude" less on the music signal than later on comparing records. It is however not what I talk about above.
If you imagine a fully analog "Solitude Standing" it would (according to me) have a more singing quality than the record we both own.

[Spannko]

I'm not sure if it's the same thing but I find modern digital recordings on LP have a kind of simplified sound. They lack the same level of realism and subtleties. Whereas, an old digitally recorded LP, such as 'Solitude Standing', has much more going for it, even though it's a 16-bit recording. Perhaps they applied less processing back then or were more skilled at the transfer to vinyl.

Modern digital recordings can still sound tuneful, but no where near most analogue recordings, to my ears anyway.

This is something I’ve noticed too, charlie1. I think it’s fair to say that modern A2D conversion is better than it was in the early days of CD, but even so, I still really like some of the early transfers, and it appears that with poorer equipment, the engineers were able to produce something which outperforms many of the later digital reissues. I know that the “loudness wars” are often blamed for this, but like you I often feel that modern recordings are not as good as they once were, even when they have a decent dynamic range. I’ve had this thought for a number of years now and my hypothesis is that it’s the ubiquitous Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) which is to blame. Digital recordings up to about 1990 could be ok and it’s only when the first DAWs appeared (around 1992) that digital recordings seemed to take a turn for the worst.

I’ve got a feeling that although DAWs can potentially damage the musicality of the signal even when all the processing is turned off, it’s probably “user error” which is causing the problem. It’s far too easy to destroy the integrity of the signal and end up with something which sounds like rhythmical noise, bereft of any musical emotion.

I think Linn have some fantastic modern digital recordings in their catalogue, and I know that they use a DAW to process them, which is another indicator that it’s not the DAWs themselves which are at fault. So I’m sure it’s not a digital versus analog thing, it’s probably a quality thing - just like it’s always been, I suppose!

[sunbeamgls]

Surely there are too many variables in the chain. Technical, skills, commercial and peer pressure to single out one thing?

[matthias]

So I’m sure it’s not a digital versus analog thing, it’s probably a quality thing - just like it’s always been, I suppose!

Agree,
there are so much variations in digital as there are in analog.
I emphasize that there are digital formats which are indistinguishable from analog like higher rate DSD.
DSD is much more similar to analog than PCM.
Digital done right can be better than analog.

Matt

[Charlie1]

Perhaps a mod would kindly split off this topic from Beck's original posting.

[Spannko]

Surely there are too many variables in the chain. Technical, skills, commercial and peer pressure to single out one thing?

Have you noticed any changes in the underlying musicality within recordings, analog or digital, since the 1920’s?

[Spannko]

Perhaps a mod would kindly split off this topic from Beck's original posting.

I was wondering if the ideas were connected, but then I may have misunderstood what beck was saying. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve got the wrong end of the stick!

[beck]

Perhaps a mod would kindly split off this topic from Beck's original posting.

I was wondering if the ideas were connected, but then I may have misunderstood what beck was saying. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve got the wrong end of the stick!

I think the discussion above is related (if not exactly what I hint at) so please just continue. :-)

[Music Lover]

Surely there are too many variables in the chain. Technical, skills, commercial and peer pressure to single out one thing?

Have you noticed any changes in the underlying musicality within recordings, analog or digital, since the 1920’s?

Imho, many of the best recordings were made in the 60’s and 70’s during the analogue peak.
Today it’s way too easy to manipulate the digital file in the recording studio

[sunbeamgls]

Surely there are too many variables in the chain. Technical, skills, commercial and peer pressure to single out one thing?

Have you noticed any changes in the underlying musicality within recordings, analog or digital, since the 1920’s?

I was trying to articulate, in my post, that there are so many variables throughout the processes and over time when processes and techniques have changed that mean it is very difficult to generalise about all digital or all analogue or one particular period of time, as examples.

[Charlie1]

Surely there are too many variables in the chain. Technical, skills, commercial and peer pressure to single out one thing?

Have you noticed any changes in the underlying musicality within recordings, analog or digital, since the 1920’s?

I was trying to articulate, in my post, that there are so many variables throughout the processes and over time when processes and techniques have changed that mean it is very difficult to generalise about all digital or all analogue or one particular period of time, as examples.

I agree, my post was a gross generalisation based on a few specific experiences.

[maffe]

Really interesting topic!
I had a college over for a pint the other night. He had just been to the http://www.clpgs.org.uk yearly meeting. I almost joined him, but I could not join.
So he talked "little" (he master the art of speaking) about acoustic recordings vs electric recordings. First electric recording came 1925.
He also almost convinced my wife that we "must" and "need" a HMV 157 at home and where we can place it in our small apartment :P

[Spannko]

Surely there are too many variables in the chain. Technical, skills, commercial and peer pressure to single out one thing?

Have you noticed any changes in the underlying musicality within recordings, analog or digital, since the 1920’s?

I was trying to articulate, in my post, that there are so many variables throughout the processes and over time when processes and techniques have changed that mean it is very difficult to generalise about all digital or all analogue or one particular period of time, as examples.

Hmm; that sounds like the response of someone who always likes have the answer (when on this occasion they don’t!)

[Spannko]

Really interesting topic!
I had a college over for a pint the other night. He had just been to the http://www.clpgs.org.uk yearly meeting. I almost joined him, but I could not join.
So he talked "little" (he master the art of speaking) about acoustic recordings vs electric recordings. First electric recording came 1925.
He also almost convinced my wife that we "must" and "need" a HMV 157 at home and where we can place it in our small apartment :P

Yes, which is why I thought the changes in technology over time may be related to becks observations.

I remember hearing Caruso singing through a wind-up with a 1200mm high, 700mm diameter papier-mâché horn. The presence and reality of his voice was way in excess of any electo-mechanical system that I'd heard at the time. But, of course, when the orchestra piped up, it sounded like a swarm of angry wasps in a bottle! However, even with what must have been horrendous wow and flutter, it produced an extremely vivid sound. I casually mentioned this to Ivor over dinner one evening ( :-O lols) and he agreed with me, suggesting that it was something to do with the very short connection between the artist and the listener.

Like your friend, many people feel that the quality of the recorded sound started its inexorable decline with the introduction of the thermionic valve! The same could be said for the introduction of the micro groove long player, stereophonic lp's, the closure of the Decca 78 rpm presses (after being modified to press 33 1/3 rpm "albums", or "dem fekin terty tree an' a turds", as Father Jack likes to call them!), transistor amplifiers, CD's, DAW's??? etc, etc.

Actually, I've got a an HMV 101 which needs a new spring. I really must get it sorted out before next summer. One can't beat listening to Elgar conducting Elgar whilst drinking a cheeky G&T on the lawn, darling!

[beck]

Enjoyed reading your above post Spannko.

The thing that makes me uneasy is that we now seem to have the technic to put real world sound relations out of effect in a kind of undefinable way.
With all the old technics it was kind of easy to hear the "distortion". It is not any longer.

Just as recordings can be said to have peeked in the 60s and 70s I think we can say that hifi in generel now is seeking elsewhere away from "normal" towards "supernormal". A sound that tries to retain much but not all of the normal attributes related to music while enhancing detail level into "supernatural" state.

When Mozart discovered the clarinet he wrote to his father about it telling him how marvelous a sound he had discovered and how well it worked to use it together with the flute and the rest of the orchestra.

He wrote passages in his music where the flute would play an octave (distance of eight notes) higher than the clarinet letting the clarinet be the foundation of the tone made by the flute.
If he had written the flute notes in the same octave it would not be possible to hear the flute tone very well. The tones would melt together making the clarinet the dominant sound.

The rules composers have to obey to get good sound from an orchestra in a live setting is being overruled by technic in the recording studio in a way that makes it possible to hear everything all the time.
In that proces I hear other relations between the tones disappear and that is what I am reacting against.

With the arrival of computers many new artist have seen the light. Some of them not being able to sing a single note well.
My take is that in the recording proces they are not in the same way as before being confronted with their inabilities to sing.
So when on stage live they also have to use digital technic to save their performance from disaster.

Live is not "live" anymore.

[Spannko]

Yes, I think you’re absolutely right beck. It seems as though modern technology makes it far to easy to produce very impressive yet unnatural sounds, lacking the important phase relationships between the notes, resulting in music being turned into noise. Your Mozart example demonstrated this really well.

[sunbeamgls]

Try these and see if you think there are no decent modern recordings:

"Convergence" by Malia and Boris Blank
"Exactly Like This" by Doug Macleod
"Living On Love" by Pete Alderton
"Migration Blues" by Eric Bibb

[sunbeamgls]

Enjoyed reading your above post Spannko.

With the arrival of computers many new artist have seen the light. Some of them not being able to sing a single note well.
My take is that in the recording proces they are not in the same way as before being confronted with their inabilities to sing.
So when on stage live they also have to use digital technic to save their performance from disaster.

Live is not "live" anymore.

I wouldn't be going to support a singer who I knew was using such technology live. Processing vocals for an effect is fine, but processing to achieve something like a decent singing voice isn't something I'd be supporting.