When and how does audio become hifi?

idc

Well-known member
From the thread on best hifi product of the decade, which was then renamed best audio product of the decade.....

idc:
Sorry Andrew, but to me the above along with your earlier comments that the ipod is not really hifi is rather elitist. You have access to the finest hifi in the world through your work and so I can understand that to you the transistor radio and the ipod sound poor. But to the vast majority, who have not heard such kit, the transistor radio and ipod are a joyous means of accessing music that, whilst maybe not of the highest quality was still better than what had gone before.

I think you have just answered your own point by saying 'whilst maybe not of the highest quality': wouldn't argue for a moment with your view about the iPod now, and tranny then, bringing entertainment to the masses, but in terms of the standards of absolute fidelity to the original recording pertaining at the time, both could easily be bettered by contemporary equipment.

Now if this thread was 'what's the most important consumer entertainment product of the decade?'...........

So when and how do you draw the line between audio and hifi?
 
If you look at the definition of audio: "Sound that is detected by human ear." And hi-fidelity which is, " The electronic reproduction of sound, especially from broadcast or recorded sources, with minimal distortion."

So just by definition, anything that you hear digitally could be classed as hi-fi. Even at country markets, if you hear a cow mooing and that is detected by some electrical source eg tannoy, or something that amplified via an amp and speaker system.

So in the real world of hi-fi, this could be surround sound, IPod's, televisions, two channel stereo set-up........I could go on, but I don't want to overplay the subject.
emotion-1.gif
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Wikipedia takes a pretty good stab at defining these terms, and with references too. You will note that there has even been an attempt at standardising the meaning of the "high fidenlity" or "hi-fi", but only with mild success, so it remains to a large degree a marketing term by audio manufaturers, and one by the enthusiasts to distinguish their (expensive) equipment from the masses... [the latter part was my addition
emotion-5.gif
].

There is a lot of audiophile snobbery around the iPod. Let's not forget that you can buy an iPod for £150, load it with lossless files, put it in an Onkyo or Wadia dock and suddenly have a perfect (in the true meaning of the word) source of digital audio for a couple of hundred quid. Feed that signal into a high quality DAC (eg Chord or Benchmark) which correctly buffers and removes any possibility of jitter/timing artefacts, and you have a source which is very hard to beat indeed. So any put down comments about the iPod not being "HiFi" are uneducated at best.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
What defines Hi Fi for me is not so much the source but what you use to turn in back into sound.

While a good DAC, lossless file format, good CD player excellent tuntable and preamp are important. Your power amplifier and speakers have a huge effect on what you actually hear. The power amp needs to easily be able to drive your choosen speakers without distortion and your speakers need to be able to accuratly re-create the signal into a good approximation of the original sound. IMHO
emotion-1.gif
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
storsvante:

There is a lot of audiophile snobbery around the iPod. Let's not forget that you can buy an iPod for £150, load it with lossless files, put it in an Onkyo or Wadia dock and suddenly have a perfect (in the true meaning of the word) source of digital audio for a couple of hundred quid. Feed that signal into a high quality DAC (eg Chord or Benchmark) which correctly buffers and removes any possibility of jitter/timing artefacts, and you have a source which is very hard to beat indeed. So any put down comments about the iPod not being "HiFi" are uneducated at best.

In this case iPod is only storage/transport and it has almost nothing to do with recreation of sound. Otherwise you can call any hdd or usb port hi-fi equipment as well.
And we must not forget that term Hi-Fi was created in seventies, that is about 40 years ago and not actual anymore. You can take lot of records of seventies or sixties, put them on even most hi-end equipment and everybody will tell that singers voice is not natural. Then you can discuss hi-fi it is or not. Nowadays we can compare it with - does my lcd shows hi-fi picture (correct colors for example).
 
T

the record spot

Guest
I think it's easy to get very precious about the topic and purist and for me it's the same as it's always been; good quality music reproduction offered to an accurate and high standard. I'm not going to get involved in a war of words over this thread simply because there are now so many means by which you can do this today, thanks to technology advances (not solely MP3, FLAC, etc., but all decent sources, amps and speakers, etc) that there is no one "right" answer.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
ediots:storsvante:
There is a lot of audiophile snobbery around the iPod. Let's not forget that you can buy an iPod for £150, load it with lossless files, put it in an Onkyo or Wadia dock and suddenly have a perfect (in the true meaning of the word) source of digital audio for a couple of hundred quid. Feed that signal into a high quality DAC (eg Chord or Benchmark) which correctly buffers and removes any possibility of jitter/timing artefacts, and you have a source which is very hard to beat indeed. So any put down comments about the iPod not being "HiFi" are uneducated at best.

In this case iPod is only storage/transport and it has almost nothing to do with recreation of sound. Otherwise you can call any hdd or usb port hi-fi equipment as well.

Yes! I agree with that, and that's the beauty of it, because for a long time this wasn't the case. As in, various forms of analog storage/transport used in the past had huge impact on the sound recreation (think tape recording, various flavours of vinyl) because inherent limitations of the underlying technology. Much less so today when cheap digital storage & transport mechanisms can recreate a digital signal perfectly. So a good chunk of the whole "HiFi" conundrum has been eliminated, and with that the need for a lot of the expensive products of the past. Leading to the situation we both describe above!

ediots:
And we must not forget that term Hi-Fi was created in seventies, that
is about 40 years ago and not actual anymore. You can take lot of
records of seventies or sixties, put them on even most hi-end equipment
and everybody will tell that singers voice is not natural. Then you can
discuss hi-fi it is or not. Nowadays we can compare it with - does my
lcd shows hi-fi picture (correct colors for example).

Actually more like the 50s. I think the first mainstream use was in marketing language for 33 RPM vinyl. The term is used throughout in this audio design handbook from 1958, incidentally the author claims he invented the term himself in 1927. I think the general understanding of the term still stands today; high-quality reproduction of sound or images that are very faithful to the original performance.
 

idc

Well-known member
storsvante:

...... I think the general understanding of the term still stands today; high-quality reproduction of sound or images that are very faithful to the original performance.

True, which arguably means some very expensive music systems that produce a very coloured sound, particularly emphasising enormous amounts of bass could not be called hifi.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
idc:storsvante:
...... I think the general understanding of the term still stands today; high-quality reproduction of sound or images that are very faithful to the original performance.

True, which arguably means some very expensive music systems that produce a very coloured sound, particularly emphasising enormous amounts of bass could not be called hifi.

Agreed, but the owner would not thank you for it.
emotion-4.gif
 

Alec

Well-known member
Oct 8, 2007
478
0
18,890
Visit site
idc:storsvante:

...... I think the general understanding of the term still stands today; high-quality reproduction of sound or images that are very faithful to the original performance.

True, which arguably means some very expensive music systems that produce a very coloured sound, particularly emphasising enormous amounts of bass could not be called hifi.

No, it means something that produces the music accurately, as the man said.
 

idc

Well-known member
al7478:.......No, it means something that produces the music accurately, as the man said.

The killer question being, can an ipod reproduce music accurately? Compared to other protable devices over the years, yes it can, particularly with an amp to a decent pair of headphones. Ipod - GQ24 cable - amp - speakers is also hifi. If it not then most CD players under £300 or so cannot be considered hifi either.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
There is one other problem. In the world of acoustic music you actually can hear a reference sound - real instrument itself. Can we get it in this electronic world? How we can know is it faithful reproduction or not? With what we must compare it?
 

PJPro

New member
Jan 21, 2008
274
0
0
Visit site
ediots:There is one other problem. In the world of acoustic music you actually can hear a reference sound - real instrument itself. Can we get it in this electronic world? How we can know is it faithful reproduction or not? With what we must compare it?
I've often considered this very question. It would seem to me that classical music would offer the best reference. This assumes, of course, that all violins say, sound the same. But I'm not sure they do?
 

Andrew Everard

New member
May 30, 2007
1,878
2
0
Visit site
Well, if one knows what a particular violin/piano/etc sounds like, once can assess how faithful the reproduced sound is to those tonal characteristics, but of course that also depends on how well the recording being played has captured that information...
 

PJPro

New member
Jan 21, 2008
274
0
0
Visit site
Sort of suggests that you need to be at the recording session to know what the instrument sounds like in the raw. But I guess that, in classical at any rate, certain instruments are known superstars in their own right?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Andrew Everard:They don't.

Yes, but at least you can track down that particular violin in concert hall, if you want. And of course, there usually will be very different acoustical environment. Mhh, maybe WHF can do something like that - to invite musican or singer which record you already have to perform in your testing room for comparison.
 

idc

Well-known member
PJPro:ediots:There is one other problem. In the world of acoustic music you actually can hear a reference sound - real instrument itself. Can we get it in this electronic world? How we can know is it faithful reproduction or not? With what we must compare it? I've often considered this very question. It would seem to me that classical music would offer the best reference. This assumes, of course, that all violins say, sound the same. But I'm not sure they do?

With regards to the idea of a reference sound, as my kit has improved over the years, it has become easier to hear what was going on with the original recording. That original recording is the reference sound. It is how the musician and producer wants the music to sound.

Some examples are;

Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti. Some of the recording was on the Rolling Stones mobile studio and one of the tracks starts with the sound of a plane and laughter from the band. They have recorded it outside. With my present kit I can now differentiate (I am sure) between the tracks recorded outside and elsewhere. There is less echo and more airiness to the tracks recorded outside.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Ragged Glory. That sounds as if it has been recorded in a large indoor, open space with the band playing live all in one takes together.

Gomez, various albums and tracks. There is so much going on in a Gomez track and so many effects. Sometimes it is clear that different instruments have been recorded at different times in different places, such as an echo on a church organ, but no other instrument sounds as such. Another band who are like this are Pink Floyd. Read Nick Masons book and you learn just how many takes there would be to get the right sound. It was rare for all the musicians in the band to play together, live in the studio.

Ash, 1977. A mess of a recording where everything has been set to flat. Gat Dad and their self titled album. It is totally over produced as if the band were in need of 'assistance' to produce a sound. Hifi will show up when it has been got wrong! That is very much the case with the compressed pop sound that many say has been created for the ipod generation and has dumbed down true hifi.

Classical music and dare I say it prog rock, because of the emphasis on musicianship and sound are two genres where hifi is fully considered by the band and producer as a means of getting a true sound that show off the musicians abilities.
 

Andrew Everard

New member
May 30, 2007
1,878
2
0
Visit site
ediots:Yes, but at least you can track down that particular violin in concert hall, if you want. And of course, there usually will be very different acoustical environment. Mhh, maybe WHF can do something like that - to invite musican or singer which record you already have to perform in your testing room for comparison.

Interesting idea, but of course that rules out the effect of the recording venue.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Andrew Everard: Interesting idea, but of course that rules out the effect of the recording venue.

Hmm, but maybe that is what we actually need? I sometimes struggling to choose what to blame - my setup or record company for albums which does not sound good enough for my ears.
 

PJPro

New member
Jan 21, 2008
274
0
0
Visit site
I think what we are saying is that faithful reproduction is not a criteria against which we can judge hifi as we cannot say what the original sounds like. It's all down to whether the listener likes the reproduction or that it meets their expectation of what the original should sound like.

So, in building a system, we are introducing our own layer of "colour" on top of that intended by the producer.
 

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts