Any science to explain the “weight” or “3D depth” of hardware audio vs software that some people claim?

[mystran]

I hear people talk about soundstage of closed back headphones but I am not quite sure what that is supposed to be exactly to be honest (other than what I said before).

Assuming headphones that will close over the ears, the wave-field inside the cans (which depends on the shape of the cans and the placement of the drivers, etc) will affect reflections from pinnae (and really from the head and the cans themselves) and possibly the resonances inside both the cans and the ear (due to impedance mismatches) and such in addition to the overall EQ balance of the drivers, so the perception of different "soundstage" and also how well a given set of headphones can avoid the "inside the head" effect has some perfectly legitimate scientific basis, even though actual preferences with regards to which cans actually sound the "best" is obviously subjective and likely also dependent on individual anatomy (more so than with speakers).

There is actual science behind a lot of stuff. That's not the problem. The problem is when people take some completely non-sense comparison (like "hardware" vs. "software") and then claim that one is "better" because it has more <insert-random-vague-term>.

[mgw38]

Fair point, but I would question if that ever can be a property of the cans themselves. It is more a property of your ear geometry in relationship with your headphones.

And yes, of course there are always people who misinterpret something due to a lack of understanding of what they are talking about.

[Nightshade03]

Its all about fabrication processes. Once upon a time, the lithographic processes required to create an integrated chip were quite large-scale, in the micrometres. That meant that, because of their relative width, every 'wire' was transferring lots of electrons at a time. For analog devices this is still true, the process is still basically on the same scale as it was 20,30 years ago. However it has shrunk.
However, as digital technology has becomes prevalent, the lithography processes required to support faster and faster CPUs processing has been shrunk massively, down to tens of nanometeres, the scale of those wires is much much smaller, and as a result, far less electrons pass along each wire in a modern processor.

Lithography scales: https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/50_%C2%B5m ... hy_process

Its quite obvious that the more electrons make up your audio signal, the heavier that audio will be. And its part of why even older digital hardware always sounds better than modern softsynths(*). There's just more combined weight of electrons.

(* well, that and smart aliasing, obvs)

Please tell me you're just trolling.

[earlevel]

If the numbers are the same (see Kemper) it will sound absolutely identical. If the numbers are not the same, there is your magic.

In 2015, I asked a Grammy-award-winning engineer friend if he had some (24-bit or higher) material I could use to show the effects of dither—the idea being a credible source so people would be less likely to question the quality if I were to supply my own reference material. He said he would.

Later, when I asked him for it, I suggested the method of transfer, and he said he'd send it FedEx, because transferring files online changes the bits (he said it "sounds different"). I tried to assure him that if that were true, the world's finances and other things would be in disarray, but had to leave it alone.

Just saying, it's a bit of black magic even to the pros.

[fese]

Its all about fabrication processes. Once upon a time, the lithographic processes required to create an integrated chip were quite large-scale, in the micrometres. That meant that, because of their relative width, every 'wire' was transferring lots of electrons at a time. For analog devices this is still true, the process is still basically on the same scale as it was 20,30 years ago. However it has shrunk.
However, as digital technology has becomes prevalent, the lithography processes required to support faster and faster CPUs processing has been shrunk massively, down to tens of nanometeres, the scale of those wires is much much smaller, and as a result, far less electrons pass along each wire in a modern processor.

Lithography scales: https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/50_%C2%B5m ... hy_process

Its quite obvious that the more electrons make up your audio signal, the heavier that audio will be. And its part of why even older digital hardware always sounds better than modern softsynths(*). There's just more combined weight of electrons.

(* well, that and smart aliasing, obvs)

Most convincing explanation in this thread so far! Makes total sense.
I going to head over to eBay to get a Pentium4 machine! Will also sound much warmer because of how hot the cpu gets.

[Haptix]

Yes, thermal throttling is all you need, that will give you those ultra-x fat bass tones Add a little kernel panic and you'll have THE most sweetly saturated sound. period.

[zerocrossing]

My theory is that when your noise floor is sufficiently low, you get a psychological separation from the sounds “environment.”

I was at a Brian Eno speaking event years ago, where he told the story of setting up some background music for an event, in the new days of CD. It didn't sound right to him. He set up a cassette deck with a blank tape and mixed in the hiss to improve it.

Yup, that’s why everyone I meet says, “You’re like that genius guy, Brian Eno!”

I do think there’s something to it, though.

[zerocrossing]

3D depth usually is something like "the audio going to the right ear is not the same as the audio going to the left ear". This is why guitars are often recorded with 2 separate takes (one panned left, one panned right) - you get a lot more stereo image than if you did something simpler like recording one take and then adding some depth with effects.

You’re correct, of course, but I don’t think this is what they’re talking about. It’s what makes this conversation problematic. Maybe a better way to say it is that I feel some synths feel like they define a point in space. It’s really difficult to communicate... I get what they’re saying, though. I feel like my two analog monos really have a bit of that and they’re all going through Bitwig, no direct monitoring. I can objectively get a plugin like Legend, Oddity or RePro to sound very similar, and as good, but there’s something off. The other thing is, what I’m talking about isn’t really that relevant to the final product. That may have something to do with the fact that my noise theory holds some truth and I’ve always got a lot of noise sources in my music via guitars and hardware instruments.

[BlitBit]

[...]
Later, when I asked him for it, I suggested the method of transfer, and he said he'd send it FedEx, because transferring files online changes the bits (he said it "sounds different"). I tried to assure him that if that were true, the world's finances and other things would be in disarray, but had to leave it alone.
[...]

Little did he know that the FedEx van would drive along a very bumpy road which resulted in the bits being shaken around so that earlevel in the end only got white noise.

[zerocrossing]

No science, at least not by me, but I do have a theory. I noticed that I kind of agreed with people when they said that x synth had “weight” in the tone, but when hooked up to a spectrum analyzer, the only actual differences I could sometimes see was the hardware synth had a noticeably louder noise floor, even if that noise was buried in a mix. I started thinking about noise and how environments all have noise signatures, unless you’re in an anechoic chamber. My theory is that when your noise floor is sufficiently low, you get a psychological separation from the sounds “environment.” Acoustic instruments are less prone to this because you need to mic them to record them, but I remember going into a studio where we had a ton of isolation on each instrument and I remember thinking my acoustic guitar seemed to loose it’s “weight” no matter how we EQed it.

Anyway, that’s all based on anecdotal evidence and speculation, but there’s a lot about it that rings true to me. I do notice that when a track seems to lack “weight” and “warmth,” that a bit of tape emulation with some tape noise does help.

I don't hear or care about analog sound being 3D or having weight, but I like your explanation.

The quiet background noise would make things possibly seem more alive and organic, while also adding a contrast to a sound that might otherwise be too pristine and lifeless.

But running a digital synth through analog devices would add some background noise and kind of negate that, or at least replicate it to some degree. As you say, a tape emulation with some noise does help, in that sense.

And not to mention it ad nauseam, but all these golden ear debates are like arguing with someone who has severe OCD. If the rug is not squared up enough for anyone to notice except the person measuring it's angles with a protractor, it doesn't matter. People should trust their gut a little more. You don't need $5,000 in tools in order to level that little bump in your lawn, just eyeball it, level it out freehand, and go for it. It'll be alright.

I agree with all that. Sometimes the Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance level of attention this stuff gets is ridiculous. I only hope that it’s the result of creative minds being forced away from their art and they go a bit off-the-rails, so to speak. I’m much less inclined to give this any energy when I’m actually in the studio, but when work and family stuff forces me away from that, I do notice that I’ll spend 15 minutes measuring that angle of the rug because I don’t have an hour to sit in the room and meditate, or whatever I do in that room. Besides, that rug really ties the room together.

[Warning: I’m pulling the following out of my ass.]

[potentialB.S.]I suspect that noise is sort of the aural equivalent to a visual artists canvas, or film grain. If you paint digitally or use acrylics on glass, you don’t have this and you can get what visual artists sometimes call a hyper-realistic effect. Something that looks so real it starts looking fake. The noise of a heavy tooth paper can really add something to a drawing and even digital paint programs have ways of mimicking this. The look of old film stock is aped even when the “filming” is done via digital video. Maybe this noise does something physical to our actual nerve endings, maybe it’s more of a psychological thing. Something like kinetic dithering? When you walk though a room you feel the air as you pass though it, but you also don’t. Your consciousness filters that data out within a certain parameter range, but is your subconscious using it to help define your position in space? I notice my daughter loves the feeling of her baby blanket. She calls it “Softy-Softy” but it’s not really soft at all. It’s kind of a rough hewn muslin fabric. After briefly losing it, I bought some back ups, but she rejected them even though they felt softer to me (to her too). After a lot of questioning I figured out that she loved how it had become more pilled up and worn. The new ones were too perfect. The decay of her OG Softy-Softy gives her comfort. Maybe there’s something inherent to our psyche that just craves a level of decay and patina. [/potentialB.S.]

[Meffy]

I used to claim to have two sample packs for sale, Vintage Analog Silence and Modern Digital Silence.

"What blank canvas is to a painter, what an untouched block of marble is to a sculptor, so is silence to a musician. Why would anyone consider starting a project with anything but the very best? Choose the pack that best fits your musical style, or buy both for the same price as one! US$0.00"

[eta] Not sure whether I included a copy of my world-famous Transparency Preserver 2.0 effect plug-in with each order.

[zerocrossing]

Some hardware tape machines do indeed give a low end bump (as I'm sure you know), and other hardware items might affect the sound when it passes through them.

But you'd only know that if you had the original signal to compare it to. And that becomes about the medium, not the source material.

But software processes such as Nebula (Acusticaudio) can pretty well replicate 'depth' of hardware consoles etc (for example AlexB consoles).

You're not going to sit there and tell me you can hear what console was used to record/mix a particular piece of music, are you? If you try I will just laugh in your face.

I bet an experienced engineer could pick out a few that they were very intimate with. More to the point, I think in an analog studio you have hundreds of different devices that each add their own noise and sonic footprint. When I say “noise,” I’m not just talking about broadband aural chaos. It’s the noise of things like an analog filter not performing exactly the same over time. The drift of an audio rate VCO. How an analog compressor behaves inconsistently with every passing moment. Even if the effects of each thing are tiny, when put together they become the grain of the paper or the weave of the canvas. It’s not nothing. Is it relevant to your music? Maybe, maybe not. Is it needed to make good sounding music? Of course not, but if you’re going for a particular aesthetic, it may still be the best way to get it.

[zerocrossing]

I used to claim to have two sample packs for sale, Vintage Analog Silence and Modern Digital Silence.

"What blank canvas is to a painter, what an untouched block of marble is to a sculptor, so is silence to a musician. Why would anyone consider starting a project with anything but the very best? Choose the pack that best fits your musical style, or buy both for the same price as one! US$0.00"

[eta] Not sure whether I included a copy of my world-famous Transparency Preserver 2.0 effect plug-in with each order.

Hello darkness, my old friend...

[zerocrossing]

Either way, the point I'm trying to make here is that going by some vague notions of "feels good" descriptions is not terribly helpful.

Except in the fact that, hopefully, we’re all artists and ultimately how we feel is everything. I agree with what your are saying, but at some point we have to acknowledge that we’re not scientifically constructing music, even though some of us have a science background or scientific knowledge.

I have a guitar that has a lot of “mo-jo.” I brought it in the early 80s. I once traded it in for another more modern guitar with a fancy Floyd Rose bridge and locking nut but I instantly felt it’s spirit cry out in pain as loud and clear as Obi-Wan felt it when Alderaan got blown away by the Death Star. Objectively, my new guitar was in every way “better” than my old G&L, but I physically felt sick without it. After thinking it would go away after a few weeks, I went back to the shop and traded back. I lost $100 in the translation, but I felt it was a small price to pay for the lesson I learned.

I don’t believe in “mo-jo” or magic, or in spirits or gods. I’m a total atheist, but what I do believe is that when you take a bunch of neurons and hormone glands and arrange them in a way where you end up with a human brain, you get a bunch of irregular systems. Maybe we want our music tools to have matching irregularities.

[vurt]

I don’t believe in “mo-jo” or magic, .

member muted.