Can sound quality be measured?

[michael hurd]

Bingo! If measurements don't tell you what you want to know, you haven't measured enough variables. A classic example is using an RTA to measure frequency response and EQing the RTA to flat. FR is not the whole story but today we, the average hobbyists, have access to really good measurement systems that can give a more complete picture of what's going on. Tomorrow we will have even better and more accessible measuring equipment.

Yea we agree.... not.

Find a well renowned audio engineer that does not use his ears as the final piece of test equipment. If measurments can do it all then we would all have indentical audio systems because they would all be built to these magical test results (that DO NOT EXIST). In the end all designers that are worth a shite tune to there personal prefernece to what they like to hear with the good old ears not test results.

Yes people actually listen to what is being mastered, but unless they correlate what they hear ( or don't hear ) with what is being displayed on the consoles, we have recordings run up into clip, we have had discs mastered and released with no low end at all ( recently the Master and Commander on Blu-ray ) as compared to the DVD. ( Blu-ray edition had a 25 hz highpass filter, and caused quite a stir amongst enthusiasts )

How many people doing this in a day to day job listen entirely too loud, and suffer from fatigue and hearing degradation? This affects the final product, just as the monitors used, the room, the gain structure, and so on. In the end, the sound is subjective, but some of us are interested in accuracy of reproduction, as the signal was recorded.

[Quiet_Hollow]

[Chris A]

...but unless they correlate what they hear ( or don't hear ) with what is being displayed on the consoles, we have recordings run up into clip, we have had discs mastered and released with no low end at all...How many people doing this in a day to day job listen entirely too loud, and suffer from fatigue and hearing degradation? This affects the final product, just as the monitors used, the room, the gain structure, and so on. In the end, the sound is subjective, but some of us are interested in accuracy of reproduction, as the signal was recorded.

This pretty much sums up my point of view on this subject--with one exception: I'm aware that there are recording, mixing, and even mastering rooms that use speakers that, IMHO, really don't reproduce the recorded signal very accurately, and the acoustic setup in the these rooms really leaves something to be desired, resulting in recordings that are mixed and mastered in a way that don't sound very good in my room. The percentage of these type of situations must be high due the number of poor recordings I come across. Using something to "reverse EQ" to correct for some of these poor instances is nice to have (such as Miketn's cello palette settings).

Chris