Steve Hoffman: Nice Statement in March STEREOPHILE

Just saw your quote in the new issue of stereophile. Nice.
Logical Reasons for choosing less than complete accuracy in a system. Cool

 

Can you post it here please for those of us who don't have access to Stereophile?

Thanks

 

Sure, glad to do it.

As I have tried to demonstrate, there are logical reasons for choosing less
than complete accuraacy in a system. Indeed, even such a highly regarded recording engineer as Steve Hoffman sometimes finds a less accurate system to be preferable to one that is more accurate: "Now, I have more than one system. My mastering system is accurate, boring and very useful to me in my work. I don't listen in there for pleasure. Not that it doesn't sound good--It does, but it's too accurate to be any fun. In some of my other systems, I can spread out a little." (www.netassoc.net/dougspage/HoffHardware.htm ). Hoffman's brief statement says a mouthful.

 

Well, that's Steve's preference. I would still prefer a totally accurate system. Just the way I am.

 

How do you know that your system is accurate?

 

Note to Steve: If the system you use isn't accurate under the HoffHardware.htm link, please E-mail or PM the correct information. Thanks.

 

What is a totally accurate system? Pop/rock music is such an artificial studio construct to begin with that it seems pointless to aspire to accuracy, whatever that means, in its reproduction. I could understand this desire more if one only listened to jazz or classical recordings.

 

In this context, I assume "accuracy" means accurate reproduction of the sound as it is encoded on the playback medium, not the original performance (if, indeed, there was ever really a "performance" at all). In other words, an accurate system in this sense would be one that plays the sound of the CD, LP, tape, or whatever that you put into it, adding as little of its own characteristic distortions or colorations as possible. Those characteristic distortions and colorations might be highly pleasing as a listening experience, but for professional purposes--or even for amateur purposes of evaluation or historical or technical understanding--they might be misleading.

I'm no professional myself, but that's the sense of the term I've gathered from reading what the many pros on this list have said.

L.

 

LOts of time, money, and effort.

I don't have an accurate system, but that's what I would want, since I have one of those mastering mindsets. I like to hear flaws in the music.

 

You want to reproduce the source as accurately as possible, no matter how the source recording was produced. So, there IS a reason to aspire to one.

I'm not trying to get the performance back, just the recording of it.

 

I do home mastering type stuff. But, i'm not like most people. I enjoy being able to hear painful flaws in recordings. So, if I fix them up, at least I can tell that it's exactly what I want.

 

Some people confuse accuracy with hyper-detail. The latter is not musical.

However, extra accuracy/resolution I have found can make a system more musical as long as its natural sounding. If someone is exposed to live music and real instrument playing tonality then its easy to know what is natural.

 

Steve has the upper hand on us guys when it comes to judging if our systems are accurate reproducers of a recording.

Think about it.

He's in the studio mixing Bad Company or whoever and he gets to hear it, as he said, on an accurate, boring system. Probably more accurate then we could imagine. Not just because of the equipment he's put together over the years but also the acoustics in the studio have been properly taken care of too. Then he takes the finished product home and hears it on a couple of stereo systems he has there. He can hear first hand what his home system has added or taken away from the original recording.

We can't hear what's been added or taken away by our system because we hear it on different equipment than what it was mixed on AND we hear it in a different room also. There is just no way to compare the recording to anything that the people in the studio heard. We can only make a judgment on whether it sounds good or not to our ears and then make only a guesstimate to how accurate our systems are in reproducing it.

Just my opinion of course .

 

It seems that a lot of people (myself included) like the sound of gear such as tube amps that introduce "warmth" or other qualities to music that are not necessarily accurate.

 

Hi Steve

Nice comments about SACD! To my ears SACD is the best medium I've ever heard.

..."too accurate to be any fun" regarding your mastering system...Everyone here would like to applaud that statement!

...this from some of us, who play a stereo pair of speakers and surround sound system simultaneously.

Thank you!

 

How long-term are the loans typically?

 

Steve, did you mean the SCD-777ES...the older tank of a player in black?

Good point but the original recording engineer may have even deeper insights!

 

Steve, did you re-acquire a McIntosh MX-110? I thought I remembered you saying you had owned one but sold it off a while back. Just curious. Us MX-110 owners love hearing about your personal experiences with a preamp that we use too! Especially when you talk about echo!

 

What is modified in the BR-20?