“Resistance is futile.”
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Is this not a hoot? I find these discussions great fun and interesting.
I sure enjoy the various impressions, it helps greatly with subsequent releases.
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The question is, are these various impressions based on system synergy, personal preferences, or bad firmware loads?
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There have always been people that liked differing releases, that’s nothing new. The bad updates are also nothing new.
But it is certainly the case that there are sets of people with similar experiences release to release. I’m not making a formal list but I watch what people post and compare it to what they said about previous releases: most are pretty consistent in their behavior.
Earlier on I preferred different compiles than Arnie and Paul did. But over time I think we’ve converged as the releases are better overall.
So IMO the biggest things are personal preferences and system synergy. Many who didn’t like a particular release changed their minds in the future when something else changed in their systems (and not always to a newer release.)
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Music is art, it’s not inherently, or at its genesis, a technical affair. Music is about the soul, spirit, and beauty of expression.
Paintings are similar. When a da Vinci masterpiece is complete, can it be improved upon? If da Vinci lived for hundreds of years, and continued to work on Salvator Mundi, would it be any better? Or does there come a point where a masterpiece is a masterpiece and any more “doing” would be to lessen it?
And with the artistic element of music reproduction, can it reach a point where doing more is to create less?
Also, has Ted been abducted by aliens lately?
All worthy questions for our Windom investigation. I’ve shelved Windom entirely for now. SnowCloud feels like home, and makes for a better Native American name anyway
Creating music is both art and science.
Emotion is only part: one must also have tremendous knowledge as well as impressive physical skills to create music
For me, this is the appeal to being a musician. To play well requires skills honed over many years, exhaustive understanding of the music, intellectual involvement, emotional depth.
Listening similarly taxes both the intellect and emotion.
It sure beats playing golf.
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How would various impressions influence a next release?
The unconfirmity inspite of perceived pressure is your mental strength!
Yes, at some point it becomes both science and art. But prior to that surface level of unfoldment, when art becomes transcendent, from that well of creativity, science is a very distant level of awareness.
And does there come a point where no improvement is possible? Is perfection capable of becoming more perfect?
I do not know of any artist for whom their art was not also science. Da Vinci, whom you referenced, repainted works, threw out less competent pieces. Beethoven and other composers repeatedly struggled through rewriting their works.
I, and other classical musicians, have worked on a single note’s attack for hours.
Even non-performers have learned music styles, progressions, etc. and enjoy listening because of their understanding. This lack of understanding is what keeps most Western listeners from enjoying Japanese, Indian, Chinese art music.
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You don’t learn when something confirms your view, but only when something isn’t explained by your view.
Almost always there are multiple changes in a release: some I have a very idea about how they will affect sound and how people will perceive those change (good or bad). Other changes may be incidental to the purposefull sound quality items, but by correlating what people report (sometimes only on a given input, specific sample rate, etc.) I can learn how something else affected the sound.
Pike’s Peak was only one change to the code which upsampled from 44.1 to 176.4. When people reported their observations I could pretty easily see what that one change did. The interesting part is that DSP classes, standard practice, etc. said there should be no difference, but as it turned out Rob Watts and I both (independently) found the same thing: how you factor filters matters.
But I suspect you are more asking how contradictory feedback helps? There are some people who were worried about whether the DS could do justice to PCM when it was first released and others who liked DSD all along: by watching how their reports changed from release to release I was learning which changes made each happier. When both got happier I knew I was onto something that mattered.
Some releases were more like bug fixes: some complained about low level listening in Torreys (and the differences between Torreys A and the later Torreys releases) From that I knew what I had to do for Huron, etc.
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Great stuff, Ted.
I particularly enjoy your first sentence.
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Yes, but at what point does it become as good as it can be? At what point does doing more become less? What I’m sharing is a very Asian concept
This is a different question.
Having worked with a number of composers on commissioned works, as well as reading the history of earlier composers, a work can always be improved. Composers are perfectionists by nature;.
Musicians also, at least me and my fellow classical musicians. There is always something we wish we would have played better.
But I understand your question and very much enjoy thinking about it.
You hear what you hear. No pressure from me…
Back to windom impressions. This is the first firmware update that I think has changed w play. For the better.
Additional listening.
Nickelcreek - first album. Incredible inner detail. More weight on plucked strings and a deeper dimension and stage. It just draws me in. The warmth is still there but with a deeper sense of inner detail.
Steely Dan - everything must go bass is great. Vocals come out of nowhere. I noted and followed lead guitar riffs where I hadn’t noticed before.
Dave Matthews - live at Luther college. Vocals better understood with acoustic instruments with more weight
Beatles - abbey road 50th - smooth with again deep dimensionality.
These are in addition to other albums noted above.
I love it.
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@Gary_M: Yeah, AFAICT.
More of a Group thing, over Many FW upgrades, and not a temporal Speed-Racer thing. Not sure why you would feel the need to respond to that.
I understand it is a group thing. I am part of the group and wanted you know that you need not feel pressure…certainly not from me.