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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: The elusive “absolute tone”.
Post Subject: The maximum tonal fruitfulnessPosted by Romy the Cat on: 11/1/2007

 morricab wrote:
Fine, just don't call anything from playback Absolute.  The only absolute is live unamplified music, it must be so as it is the original event.

Actually I do like the term Absolute and exactly in this context. The Absoluteness in this case is not in relation to original event but a relation to max potential of reproduced tone. In this case term Absolute is much more applicable then the case with live music.

 morricab wrote:
Sorry Romy you lost me there in your convoluted logic.  I have no idea what you mean by "maximum "human" tonal amplitude".  The closeness of a piece of music captured on tape or disc and its subsequent reproduction to the live original event is dependent on three things 1) The closeness of the recording to the real event, 2) The ability of the playback system to preserve the signal derived from the storage medium and 3) The room interaction with the propagated sound waves.

Actually none of them. A playback does not mimic the sound of live musical event and if people think that it does then they juts delusion themselves.

 morricab wrote:
Of course it is!  I think you are wrong here and your attempt to define something really arbitrary like "maximum Human tonal amplitude" is making the problem overly complicated (Note: I did not say the solution wasn't complicated).  The closer the recrording, playback and room allow for a good imitation (ie. correctness to the absolute) the more like the real thing it becomes.  If the imitation is perfect then at least blindfolded (afterall with reproduction there are no performers present) you would never be able to tell the difference! 

I do not know if I am right or wrong but the definition of Absolute Tone really sets the thing straight to me. Sound of playback is new reality, not the cloned really of original event but a created from scratch, using the blueprints of original events. There is a transition of Absolute Tone from live music to sound reproduction but it does not called Absolute Tone in audio. In audio it might be called juts “tone”. The Audio’s Absolute Tone is a purely property of playback indicating  maximum tonal “fertility” the given audio solution can develop under the other the most  favoriteable conditions.

Rgs, Romy the caT

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