This may be a dumb question, but how do you measure quality of sound? If it sounds good through my headphones–better than the internal speaker–I’m pretty happy. Of course, I’m musically dyslexic, so it all sounds the same to me.
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I suppose you measure the signal to noise ratio, as with
any communication channel.
You are trying to reproduce a complicated multi-frequency signal, without adding rubbish to it.
That is different from measuring the quality of music… there
is a subjective element there. I know you can distinguish between different types of music using fractal analysis.
The ancients regarded music as a branch of mathematics.
Dont ask me, I am musically inept.
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First of all, I’d like to inform forum users that what I’m about to write is just my opinion and, although it may be controversial, I in no way intend to generate a discussion around the subject of audio analysis.
Hi Bill,
I believe that before you know how to measure sound quality, you should first know what sound quality is.
If you don’t mind me asking, what does sound quality mean to you? I don’t want to know technical specifications, of course
I’ll help you answer my question with an example: If you draw a perfect square in a drawing program and, when you print it, the printed image is a rectangle, the printer or the whole printing process is of poor quality, right?
So what is sound quality to you?
Jorge
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Jorge: I like when a melody resolves tonal tension after the bridge; I don’t like dissonance. I like when I can hear instruments and voices without distortion–when they sound like they’re in the room. Sound quality is when it sounds realistic.
If I draw a perfect square and it prints as a rectangle, the problem is probably in the printer settings and is user-fixable. If I listen to sounds and they don’t sound like they do in the same room, I turn them off.
Audio analysis is ten steps past when I stop listening to an explanation.
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Hi Bill,
I’m really sorry but I misunderstood your question and it was with your last post that I realized you should have been asking about musical quality and not sound quality, which are very different.
please ignore my question
I apologize for my misunderstanding
Jorge
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You didn’t misunderstand. Music quality is subjective and not quantifiable. Sound quality depends on my ears; no technobabble about frequencies and such means much to me.
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Something that is traditionally subjective, can often be
made objective by understanding the physics or chdmistry or whatever thst is behind it.
That is one of the things Science tries to do. … not always
successfully. For example, the ‘feel’ of a garment depends
mostly on the diameter of the fibres used to make it, but not completely… there are unexplained factors
I think music is like that. We understand some things about
combinations of frequencies, but not everything.
One of the traps scientists fall into is… they discover something which explains some phenomenon, then
assume that they know everything about the topic.
That is how I understand @berninghausen 's position on music quality. He has been ‘browned off’ by techos claiming
to know all the maths behind it, when it is obvious to everyone that their knowledge is incomplete.
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“browned off” is a new and delightful expression, far more elegant than my usual comment on sound ‘experts’ which finds its origin in the barnyard. But, yes, Neville, the esoteric knowledge of technical sound experts has me browned off. Music either sounds good or not. Opera vocals, not. Opera and orchestra composition, yes. Hiphop, not. Any era of jazz, yes. Heavy metal, not.
Told you I’m musically dyslexic.
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It is what happens to grass and pasture in Australia in the
dry Summer.
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Partially with you there - e.g. I like the overtures and interludes in some Opera - like Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” - but hate most of the vocal parts - but - I recently made an exception to that - was listing to Maria Callas Arias a couple of weeks ago after hearing her “O Mio Babbini Caro” from Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi”… Maria would have been 100 this month…
I like some hiphop, but mostly “old school” stuff from the 80’s and 90’s when it was about legitimate grievances for minority groups (i.e. African Americans) - but I like a few Aussie hiphop acts too like Hilltop Hoods and Seth Sentry and “Briggs” (he’s indigenous)…
Disagree on Jazz - mostly (unless it’s like Ella Fitzgerald, or Billie Holliday or Louis Armstrong era). But you’re WRONG about Heavy metal, them’s fighting words mate 
- only kidding, but I’m a big metalhad…
Anyway - I know what I like, and what I don’t. Might be unscientific, but music in lossless digital format sounds HEAPS better than lossy formats like mp3 or the shite that Spotify foist on their users (yeah - I know some of you love Spotify)… Music in ANALOG sounds even better (i.e. vinyl)… I can’t explain the difference scientifically, but I can hear it! Also - one final note before I release this hostage thread I’ve kidnapped, LIVE MUSIC sounds better than ANY recording …
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So technology fails to reproduce sound?
Or is there something in addition to sound at a live performance.?
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There’s a whole bunch of factors - but mostly it’s analog - i.e. in the realm of human perception - I could be deluded, and I’m a huge user of digital technology - but - we lost something when we abandoned analog…
And with “live music” - there’s the immediacy and the sheer adrenalin, that it’s “being made now” instead of injected into a can on a production line…
Some acts use a lot of digital trickery, when live, but most metal (heavy metal) bands don’t…
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There is also the issue of playback equipment.
You could have a perfect digital copy, but fail
to render it back to sound correctly.
For example, you cant place speakers in the same physical
positions as all the instruments in a band.
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Hi Bill,
I was only going to respond to your post because you asked the following:
He would never talk about sound quality unless asked.
Hi Neville,
Yes, in part, and one of the explanations is given by Dan:
I also partly agree with what Dan said:
If the sound quality is good, you have additional factors, such as emotion, the surrounding sound (reflections), feeling the music (yes, you feel the music, an example is the sub-bass), which means that live music can be considered better by some people.
Jorge
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Music is a communication between a creator and an auditor. When the auditor can hear everything transmitted by the creator with perfect fidelity, it’s good. When the product is flawed (unintelligible lyrics, poor diction, drums too loud) it’s bad. If a recording medium is in the middle, it can affect the quality. So can drunks at the next table, if we’re talking live music.
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TLDR;
In a nutshell:
Have acceptable room acoustics, otherwise all efforts to have a good reproduction are doomed to fail!
Longer story:
And that’s not even necessary… 
Stereo is invented to represent a stage.
Assuming ideally positioned microphones at recording, and ideally positioned speakers at the playback, theoretically it is possible to reproduce a sound of an instrument coming from the middle of the stage.
The problem is, at the playback side: unless having a room dedicated to listening, you can’t always place the speakers ideally…
My brother in law is the distributor of Audionote in Hungary. So I (think I) have a good reference on what sounds really good at the playback side.
My system doesn’t even gets close to be that good (and I don’t even intend to achieve anything like that, it’s simply not for my class of income…).
But what I have to reproduce music, sounds quite OK.
Well, it did, until last year we rearranged the furnitures in our living room - according to whishes of my wife. That modified arrangement looks comfortable, but it totally ruined the acoustics of the room, I noticed loud resonances, especially in the below 200Hz range: I never experienced that booming bass at 90Hz, while totally lost everything below 60Hz.
The stage reproduction went wrong too, while I could spot the place of a high pitched instrument (flute, trumpet, violin), but a tuba came from everywhere…
I spent a lot of time trying to reposition my speakers (within the limits set by the rooms and furnitures properties), but nothing did really help.
I started to blame the huge naked hard wall opposite the speakers.
So I built a sound absorber (15cm thick filled with rock-wool), which I mounted on the wall opposite the speakers, so that it introduced a “hole” on the huge hard surface, so the reflection from that wall got some attenuation. And indeed, this helped a lot! After that the room got a similar acoustic as it had before, most of the resonances went away.
Lesson learned: having a good reproduction starts with a good-enough (well attenuated) room. You can place the most expensive playback equipment, and fiddle with placebos like silver-fibre interconnect cables, if the room acoustic is bad, the reproduction won’t be any good.
You are seeing music as a language. … maybe a number of
languages depending on the type of music.
Yes the auditor needs to receive the message and understand it, but that is not all. It is like poetry or art… people vary in the way they interpret it… there are no conventions or standards like in recognised languages.
You can invent your own language … people have done that.
Music offers opportunities for that, so we get types of music that few of us understand.
Computer languages dont work like music. There is some
invention of new ones, but strictly controlled. When the auditor is a computer the opportunities for creativity
are limited.
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On the few occasions I listen to opera - it’s usually in Italian and I mostly don’t understand it - but - I don’t need to!
I also listen to a fair amount of Eastern Mediterranean music, e.g. from the Balkans, Greek, Armenian, Anatolian (Turkish), Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine) - and I don’t understand ANY of it - but I somehow feel the emotion…
Also - I listen to Rammstein (German) fairly often, I can kinda understand some of the lyrical content, but I don’t need to - I just love the music…
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You confirm what I tried to say
its not the language the vocalist uses
its the language of music itself
A musical performance conveys something.
A musical composition (ie written music) does not on its
own contain the full message, Performers add something.
That is just like spoken word having clearer meaning than written word. Speech can add emphasis and tone.
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I sense more agreement than disagreement in this discussion. We all appreciate talented musicians for their talent and skill. The only area I’m fussy about is people who sing in English without making the lyrics understandable–totally unsatisfactory.
One of the Ghost Sniper games has a soundtrack by Ukrainian singers and musicians. The music is spectacular and I don’t understand a word of the lyrics. Even so, the lyrics are clearly pronounced and would be understandable by someone who knows the language. The music of Stan Getz is marvelous, no matter how ignorant of Portuguese I am.
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