Audio Transparency
As we have seen, the main reason to measure audio gear is to learn if a device’s quality is high enough to sound transparent.
All transparent devices by definition sound the same because they don’t change the sound enough to be noticed even when listening carefully.
But devices that add an audible amount of distortion can sound different, even when the total measured amount is the same. A-weighting helps relate what’s measured to what we hear, but some types of distortion are inherently more objectionable (or pleasing) than others.
For example, harmonic distortion is “musical,” whereas IM distortion is not. But what if you prefer the sound of audio gear that is intentionally colored?
In the 1960s, when I became interested in recording, ads for most gear in audio magazines touted their flat response and low distortion. Back then, before the advent of multilayer printed circuit boards, high-performance op-amps, and other electronic components, quality equipment was mostly handmade and very expensive. In those days design engineers did their best to minimize the distortion from analog tape, vacuum tubes, and transformers.
Indeed, many recordings made in the 1960s and 1970s still sound excellent even by today’s standards. But most audio gear is now mass-produced in Asia using modern manufacturing methods, and very high quality is available at prices even nonprofessionals can easily afford.
Many aspiring recording engineers today appreciate some of the great recordings from the mid-twentieth century. But when they are unable to make their own amateur efforts sound as good, they wrongly assume they need the same gear that was used back then.
Of course, the real reason so many old recordings sound wonderful is because they were made by very good recording engineers in great (often very large) studios having excellent acoustics. That some of those old recordings still sound so clear today is in spite of the poorer-quality recording gear available back then, not because of it!
Somewhere along the way, production techniques for popular music began incorporating intentional distortion and often extreme EQ as creative tools. Whereas in the past, gear vendors bragged about the flat response and low distortion of their products, in later years we started to see ads for gear claiming to possess a unique character, or color.
Some audio hardware and software plug-ins claim to possess a color similar to specific models of vintage gear used on famous old recordings. Understand that “color” is simply a skewed frequency response and/or added distortion; these are easy to achieve with either software or hardware, and in my opinion need not demand a premium price.
For example, distortion similar to that of vacuum tubes can be created using a few resistors and a diode, or a simple software algorithm.
The key point is that adding color in the form of distortion and EQ is proper and valuable when recording and mixing. During the creative process, anything goes, and if it sounds good, then it is good. But in a playback system the goal must be for transparency—whether a recording studio’s monitors or a consumer playback system.
In a studio setting the recording and mixing engineers need accurate monitoring to know how the recording really sounds, including any coloration they added intentionally. With a consumer playback system you want to hear exactly what the producers and mix engineers heard; you’ll hear their artistic intent only if your own system adds no further coloration of its own.
“The Audio Expert” by Ethan Winer, published by Focal Press (ISBN: 9780240821009), is available here. To read part 1, Audio Fidelity, Measurements, And Myths, go here.