From: Fred Maxwell <rockbox_at_anti-spam.org>
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 17:01:56 -0400

Green, Tom wrote:

> True again - But, we're in agreement that these quantities don't always
> relate to "good" picture taking or "good" art.

Agreed. But you better not plan on making a living by doing portrait
and wedding photography using an APS point-and-shoot with a plastic
lens. It's usually hard to do good art with poor tools, whether your
art relies on brushes, amplifiers, cameras, guitars, or table saws.

> I suspect that Jimi
> Hendrix wasn't too interested in "accurate" reproduction of his guitar -
> it would appear that in most cases he was after a certain "distorted"
> sound and feel, which helped make his music unique.

Don't mistake producing and reproducing. Jimi got a sound that he liked
and the one that he intended for the audience to hear. I don't think
that he would have been too keen on some record producer further
distorting his distorted guitar sound.

> Agreed,
> the numbers are nice to know, and can serve to compare different
> components, but in the final analysis, what matters is personal taste,
> which I think we agree can't be "measured" very well.

If you and I listen to stereo speakers, we may disagree on which one
sounds the most accurate, but identifying accuracy should be the goal.
I get worried about people going for a sound that they "like" rather
than one which is accurate.

> Yes, good analogy. I think we learned to live with clicks and ticks on
> vinyl just because it was just there. Now with digital, we have the
> ability to NOT hear it, so we're getting used to that.

Even at the time that vinyl was the only choice, I used to
subconsciously cringe just prior to each tick that I knew was about to
occur. Mind you, I was meticulous in the care of my albums,
substituting high-end plastic sleeves for the cheap paper sleeves used
by the record companies, dusting the albums with Discwasher record
cleaners, and cleaning them with a StaticMaster polonium brush. They
still got ticks and pops. I don't miss that.

Regards,
   Fred Maxwell




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Received on 2004-06-21