Recordings to evaluate equipment

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Lindsayt
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Recordings to evaluate equipment

Unread post by Lindsayt »

Apologies for the format of this opening post. Which is due to me being aware of possible copyright issues, which I wouldn't want to bring onto this forum.
There is a Swedish forum where they encourage comparative recordings to be published, which I will be linking to.

Does anyone think that AB recordings of hi-fi equipment using non specialised recording equipment is adequate for evaluating which items you would like to buy? For example in the case of deciding which of two $5000 vinyl sources to buy?
With non specialised recording equipment including mobile phones and the internal motherboard sound-cards in desktop PC's.

Here's a link to 2 sets of recordings that I made using non specialised recording equipment.
Feel free to express your opinion on how you'd rank the relative sound quality of the recordings, using whichever listening and evaluation method you like, including tunedem.
Also feel free to express your opinion, if you can form one, on what vinyl sources were used for each recording.
And feel free to express your opinion on whether you think these recordings are good enough to do any meaningful evaluation of the vinyl sources.

https://www.lejonklou.com/forum/viewtop ... start=5575

You may also, as an experiment, want to make your own recordings using non specialised recording equipment and publish them (in a suitable place) for a bit of blind listening entertainment for the rest of us.

My thoughts - based on my limited experiments so far - are that recordings using non specialised equipment are hopeless for evaluating equipment. Too much important information gets masked. So much so that I would never use them to make a buying decision. I would much rather stick to listening to the equipment itself - in a level matched real life bake-off.
Those are purely my thoughts. Other people have different views on this, for example:
https://www.lejonklou.com/forum/viewtop ... f=2&t=5798
https://www.lejonklou.com/forum/viewtop ... 8&start=25

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Re: Recordings to evaluate equipment

Unread post by Geoff.R.G »

Thinking about this, you will probably be able to hear differences between sources but, depending on the rest of the recording system (amp, speakers, recording mic etc.) which would need to be unchanged between sources, what you would be hearing would be the difference in that system.

I think you would be better off with non-specialist recording equipment because that way you can eliminate such things as equalisation and signal processing. Using a phone to record tracks played on two different turntables would probably give you a reasonable idea of the differences but you, obviously, have no control over any variables.

Specialist recording equipment simply adds complexity and, arguably, puts you further from the component you are evaluating. However, such an approach could eliminate speakers, microphones etc. at the cost of introducing an ADC/sound card/audio interface.

I wouldn’t even consider such a method of evaluation, too many variables and too little control over them.

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Re: Recordings to evaluate equipment

Unread post by CN211276 »

It is something I would not consider.
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Lindsayt (Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:22 pm)
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Re: Recordings to evaluate equipment

Unread post by Fretless »

For me the best is always favourite albums/tracks, music that I really know well.

When equipment reveals something new then I can tell there is a higher degree of resolution. Also you can hear if it is complementary to the genres you are most likely to listen to.
If a much-loved song sounds bad then stay away from that gear.

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Re: Recordings to evaluate equipment

Unread post by Lindsayt »

By specialist recording equipment, I was thinking of stuff like a Studer 1/4" 2 track tape machine at 7.5 or 15 IPS with the sound meters, and setting the recordings at levels below clipping that were as near as conveniently possible to level matched.

And then listening to those recordings from the Studer.

Or the equivalent to the Studer for digital recordings. Whatever that would be. I'm no expert in the digital recording field.

The sort of thing that would have half a chance of a semi-representative recording. Unlike a mobile phone, or slamming the phono amplification output straight into a desktop PC via the mic input. :roll:
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Geoff.R.G (Sat Jan 22, 2022 9:22 pm)

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Re: Recordings to evaluate equipment

Unread post by Geoff.R.G »

Lindsayt wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:18 pm By specialist recording equipment, I was thinking of stuff like a Studer 1/4" 2 track tape machine at 7.5 or 15 IPS with the sound meters, and setting the recordings at levels below clipping that were as near as conveniently possible to level matched.

And then listening to those recordings from the Studer.

Or the equivalent to the Studer for digital recordings. Whatever that would be. I'm no expert in the digital recording field.

The sort of thing that would have half a chance of a semi-representative recording. Unlike a mobile phone, or slamming the phono amplification output straight into a desktop PC via the mic input. :roll:
I would consider a digital audio interface and appropriate software specialist recording equipment, most people wouldn’t have either. I have a number of tape machines, only one of which can manage 15 ips but to put the recording on-line I wouldn’t use any of them, I’d use the interface and a computer.

That said I wouldn’t use recordings to evaluate equipment, even if I knew what hardware and software had been used to make them. Particularly if what I was evaluating was analog. In another thread I mentioned that digital recording destroys timing, which, I suggested, is why analog sounds better and is more involving. How can you assess analog equipment using a medium that removes the very attributes that make analog so good?
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Lindsayt (Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:05 pm)

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Re: Recordings to evaluate equipment

Unread post by Lindsayt »

I agree Geoff.R.G.

I've not had the chance to do some recordings with a good (sound quality) audio interface. I have an open mind that maybe with one it's possible to make recordings that would be of some use.

But when you get to mobile phones or ADC's on PC motherboards there's too much scope for issues with the recording like saturating the microphone or DAC, large frequency anomalies, introducing excessive digital hash, dynamic compression, lack of consistency in the recording technique.

It's also one of those where I'd either want to do the recording myself or have the recording done by somebody that I'd completely trust. And thinking about it, I wouldn't trust myself to make consistent and fair recordings until I'd gone through a thorough trial and error experimentation phase with the recording equipment.

It's like taking photos of photos to determine which of 2 cameras is the better one. Instead of just using the 2 cameras and looking at the photos direct.
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Geoff.R.G (Sat Jan 22, 2022 11:12 pm)

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Re: Recordings to evaluate equipment

Unread post by Geoff.R.G »

Lindsayt wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:35 pm I agree Geoff.R.G.

I've not had the chance to do some recordings with a good (sound quality) audio interface. I have an open mind that maybe with one it's possible to make recordings that would be of some use.

But when you get to mobile phones or ADC's on PC motherboards there's too much scope for issues with the recording like saturating the microphone or DAC, large frequency anomalies, introducing excessive digital hash, dynamic compression, lack of consistency in the recording technique.

It's also one of those where I'd either want to do the recording myself or have the recording done by somebody that I'd completely trust. And thinking about it, I wouldn't trust myself to make consistent and fair recordings until I'd gone through a thorough trial and error experimentation phase with the recording equipment.

It's like taking photos of photos to determine which of 2 cameras is the better one. Instead of just using the 2 cameras and looking at the photos direct.
I’ve done quite a bit of recording using an interface and Audacity but I had £2,000+ digital mixer driving the interface! Even so I was able to get a better recording that way than using a USB drive straight from the mixer. Using the USB B output for a multi track recording was better but over the top for a simple stereo recording. The particular mixer isn’t very clever at recording speech. All of which illustrates the potential pitfalls of trying to produce a consistent recording for evaluation purposes.

Most Hi-Fi enthusiasts don’t have access to suitable equipment to drive a digital recording system hard enough. A standard -10 dBV output just isn’t sufficient, +4 dBu is required, I’ve tried and it really doesn’t work well.

If you are going to make the recording yourself you might as well do the evaluation there and then. Unless you can guarantee that the two, or more, recordings are to the same standard, using the same equipment, I really can’t see how a valid comparison can be made.
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Lindsayt (Sun Jan 23, 2022 9:40 am)

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