I think you may have not watched the whole video and the one linked in the pre-amp video on microphones.
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"I'm just a performer"
- Thread starter crazycloud
- Start date
OK, as someone who has the engineering knowledge and tools to do it, not to mention many years of experience doing AB/ABX comparisons explain what his methodology should have been. Especially to keep it interesting for a general view video and not a dry engineering or AES paper.
I’m well aware of Jim’s microphone video. My post made no mention of microphones, only microphone preamps. My post was also specific to the inaccurate titling of the video being discussed, which is why I think you misread my post. Jim’s microphone video has no bearing on the title of his microphone preamp video and the fact that his title is wildly inaccurate and misleading when placed under any modicum of scrutiny.
He’s bang on. Agree with all his measurements. Today’s ‘good enough’ is yesterday’s ‘unbelievably expensive’.
Imagine turning up to a gig 40years ago with a digital stage box brain, wifi router, an iPad and an HXStomp. I literally packed and unpacked racks of gear that I could never dream of affording into/out of vans that, today, you can carry in one rucksack on a push bike, gear you can buy for the cost of a couple of gigs.
Imagine showing a Burrbrown IC op-amp to a console designer in the 1970’s - be like an alien talking to a cat. Just so far from the technology of the day as to be unrecognisable - even to the best designers.
So yeah, fantastic video.
It’s not a video about saturation - that’s a different story. No tape saturation - no ‘transformer harmonic distortion for its own sake’ that’s not what his video is about but seems to be a lot of the responses from folk who seem to deliberately miss the point and prattle on about some edge case or other mythical factor that ‘makes all the difference’
Imagine turning up to a gig 40years ago with a digital stage box brain, wifi router, an iPad and an HXStomp. I literally packed and unpacked racks of gear that I could never dream of affording into/out of vans that, today, you can carry in one rucksack on a push bike, gear you can buy for the cost of a couple of gigs.
Imagine showing a Burrbrown IC op-amp to a console designer in the 1970’s - be like an alien talking to a cat. Just so far from the technology of the day as to be unrecognisable - even to the best designers.
So yeah, fantastic video.
It’s not a video about saturation - that’s a different story. No tape saturation - no ‘transformer harmonic distortion for its own sake’ that’s not what his video is about but seems to be a lot of the responses from folk who seem to deliberately miss the point and prattle on about some edge case or other mythical factor that ‘makes all the difference’
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Your highly offensive name calling aside, it’s not beside the point at all. Differences in microphone preamps when kept fully within the realm of linearity are indeed minutely different, but can be measurably different when pushed into non-linearity. A Focusrite or other interface preamp remains wholly linear until it clips. The same cannot be said of some transformer and tube equipped preamps. The reality is that his blanket titling and some of the statements he makes in the video are only supported by his scientifically insignificant comparison of only two preamps. He makes a good point about not needing to overspend on preamps, but at the same time the hypothesis presented falls short of validity with only an N or 2.
No, he's making a comparison between the Focusrite (and with few exception most modern 'interface' preamp stages) and the relatively modest non linearities brought by some components moving to a less linear stage of amplification, the subtle tonal differences that usually involves and the hype then used to market these as some type of magic tonal change.
The other part of the video I found interesting was the comparison of the plug in FRs with the actual unit. I don't think I've seen that done anywhere else.
That’s not the point of his video, nor is it what he is talking about. The point is, you don’t need a super expensive Neve preamp to make records that sound like his favourite recorded records that were recorded in a super studio. The expensive preamp is not the key ingredient. The point is there is a lot of mythology and repeated claims about preamp magic which are easily disproven by a normal person willing to take the time to do the testing with any degree of rigour.
I certainly mean no offence, I have edited my post - and was not meant to denegrate. How about ‘people who make comments on videos who seem to miss the point on purpose?’
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The point is well taken and I don’t disagree with it in general. What I do disagree with is the blanket statements made by Jim at various points of the video, the way he presents aspects as scientific facts with an utterly insignificant sample size, and several points throughout the video where he doesn’t clearly define his testing methodology that leave sufficient ambiguity to render some of them inconclusive at best if not fundamentally flawed at worst.
This is all a great example of someone showing some plots and then the general population responding to that as “doing science” when it’s not really getting all the way there.
The pre-amps in the early Sun studio - ‘the radiator’ running hot into a suffering tape machine is a good example. Sounds like absolute crap. But also sounds totally awesome.
I missed this one earlier.
Right, but he’s comparing a single preamp, in this case a Neve 88R, to a stand-in for essentially all interface preamps. The latter I take no issue with as they’re all effectively the same. The former I do as there’s a wide range of differences between preamps just by virtue of topologies and impedances. To make any kind of definitive statement based on an N of 2 is inconclusive at best. His undefined mult process for the input makes the entire thing unrepeatable without further clarification from Jim, and further might render his results entirely void as there are a multitude of methods for doing that where you’d end up with wildly different results between each side of the mult.
I agree with the sentiment that overpaying for preamps as some sort of recording silver bullet is a dumb idea. Beyond that his video can be distilled down to entertainment with little scientific merit.
Addendum: I would love to see Jim respond to the Gearspace thread on this topic with the intent of revising his testing methodologies to one the community could agree on as being scientifically valid and remedying some of his obvious errors.
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*31105
The GS complaint about his testing methodology is moving the goalposts. Yes, there are ways to clearly show differences between amplifier topologies. But (with some exceptions,) most of those methods are outside of normal use. The point of his video was not to claim that there aren't any differences, it's to show that an expensive mic pre isn't what makes a recording good. It doesn't mean you shouldn't use expensive gear. Just that that the princess is in another castle.
Is the premise/thumbnail slightly clickbait-ey? Yeah. But he's right, some people ARE mad. Especially people who spent a lot of money buying gear that they maybe didn't need as much as they think they did.
Which one of the GS complaints are you referring to? The inadequacies of mult disclosure and impedance are absolutely non trivial. They’re only “moving the goal posts” if you don’t care about test accuracy.
Both. The test wasn't intended to illustrate differences. The test is intended to show similarity, in service of disproving the hypothesis that you need an expensive mic pre to make a good recording.
Degree of difference, degree of similarity… That’s purely semantic. They’re measurably not the same, so however you label it the test is identical. If you start out with flawed methodology and ambiguous methodology your results are equally flawed and impossible to recreate for peer review. As such I stand by my assertions throughout this thread; I agree that mic preamps are generally pretty similar and not some silver bullet to a good recording, and Jim’s testing leaves a lot to be desired in terms of accuracy, disclosure, and ability for peer review.
He wasn't writing a white paper. It's a YouTube video aimed at musicians.
You're apparently not the target audience. I'm definitely not the target audience.
But for decades, I've watched home recordists come on forums looking for an answer to why their recordings don't sound as good as professionally-made ones. And I've watched gear manufacturers and dealers construct a narrative that the reason is the gear. This answer sounds plausible to the uninformed, and even more appealing, by elevating unobtainably-expensive equipment to such a high position, you can find comfort in the delusion that if only you had the right gear, you could be just as good as a professional.
The truth is, unless you're dealing with impedance matching (e.g., ribbon mics and tube preamps), or deliberately driving things into nonlinearity (something which does happen, but is not as often as internet forums would indicate), a modern IC-based amplifier can actually outperform vintage discrete designs. But to say so will inevitably result in people pushing back and appealing to authority.
Oh yeah. We like that kind sound more because it's been done and it sounds 'right' to us but whenever you hear people from that time period being interviewed they will tell you they wanted higher fidelity and less distortion. Motown would have killed for a Focusrite.
A Yugo and Ferrari are similar in that they will both go from point A to point B just like any 2 preamps will in fact amplify the signal. What does demonstrating that accomplish? Its what happens when you step on the gas that differentiates both the cars and the preamps and is precisely what he is NOT doing.
Go see Colt Capperrune's video kicking the crap out of ole Jim's BS. The issue with Lill's so called science is sooner or later you need to show where the tone DOES come from and after all this time he still hasn't figured it out. Clearly there is a flaw in the premise. He just wants suckers to buy his "courses"
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He is presenting it as science so yeah, its a white paper in effect.
Non linearity is the advantage of analog gear and finding the color and character it can bring is the whole point and art of it. If you're not doing that then you are not much of an engineer, kind of like ole Jim. The truth is Jim is selling his wares just like those evil gear mfg's so why does he get credibility for any this while you belittle the mfg's?
Its a video about the lack of saturation. That's exactly what differentiates preamps. Good engineers take advantage of those difference. Poor ones, like Jim, remove them, wonder why their stuff sucks and claim "fraud" for clicks.
