Which doesn’t exist, and is completely unfeasible to accomplish. Also known as an ignorant and wasted effort
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So the best you can do is try to build a system with the flattest broadest FQ response you can is what theyre leaning toward ? I can go with that for a 2.2 dedicted room setup. What gets me is the “what the artist intended” thing.
i think your take mon is its impossible for any gear from mic to speaker that recreates the sound in the studio recording room or live event other than being physically in the room with the artists?
For asr, they are trying to build systems that best meets their target response and metric, what they personally feel is correct. This doesn’t mean it’s correct, but it’s what they think is correct. Basically they want something that looks good on paper to them and real life performance comes second
It’s a great question, what the hell did the artist intend? It’s not like you can go and ask them, as I’d guess they really can’t fully explain their intent through words. There’s really no way of knowing, there’s so many factors that go into it. The closest you might get would be “what did the mastering and production engineers intend” and even that’s a long shot. One big problem is the question of was intent ever realized in the first place, it’s a game of compromises, who’s intent took priority more? The artist themselves? The recording engineer? The mastering house? The label? And more. And let’s say to take out variables, the music was entirely created throughout the entire process by the artist, did they actually have the skills and tools to realize their internal intent? And then we get into the actual process and idea of how things are produced and how there are limitations there. Which will take awhile to talk about. Basically just assume that true intent is a lost cause at this point
As mentioned above, the closest you can get is most likely what the mastering studio hears or the mixing process, and to recreate that, you would need the exact same room, same equipment, and exact same ears and brain to hear that with yourself, which you can see most likely isn’t reasonable to do. That’s not intent either, that’s just getting as close as to hearing what they might hear. And another question would be do you really want to hear that anyways? You have to keep in mind that a large amount of music is recorded for the common person on their common setup, so the final product is optimized to sound good on that lower end gear. It could have sounded excellent if it were geared for playback on higher end gear, but then the common person wouldn’t enjoy it as much. And yes, as soon as you actually have to record that music, some intent may be lost, but that all depends on the artist and how they feel, which you can’t really know anyways
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His point is that what’s on the disk isn’t what the artist heard.
The artist heard it through a DAC, amp and speakers (probably near field) in a room with a shape and sound treatment.
Unless you were in the room at the point the artist signed off on the mix, you have no way to know what they heard, so assuming something with a low SiNAD, somehow reproduces it is fiction.
Most amps and DAC’s have flat frequency responses, through the entire hearing range, and yet they sound different, go compare the FR 20-20000 Hz of say a liquid spark, and a Magni Heresy, they are both flat, and yet one sounds warmer than the other.
Measure any amp through an actual pair of headphones and all the FR variation is swamped by the transducer, so what’s the point?
I have no problem with taking measurements, I think it’s useful to a point, but you should judge a system on what you hear from it, not try and reduce it to a single number.
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The closest thing you can basically shoot for at this point is the idea of making something that will “most accurately represent the source material” or something that is “the most faithful to the final recording” which again is a tall order, but it least it could be more potentially possible than figuring out what an artist intended, but still somewhat impossible imo
You also have to consider that some studio gear is typically not clean and linear. It exists to add coloration and distortion most of the time, but in a desirable way. There’s no real point to having ultra low distortion or ultra high sinad gear when it isn’t going to matter because the source material is going to be worse than that anyways, along with the actual transducers themselves being worse measuring than the gear typically, so you sacrifice other aspects of the sound for those extra good measurements that won’t even matter in the end.
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So pretty much, if they know the smell of the console discussed in the linked video… then trust them?
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If we’re getting pedantic, the point of mastering isn’t some artistic ideal, it’s to make it sound good enough on a range of typical listening systems.
Car audio, crappy earbuds, beats etc etc.
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Correct, hence my lowest common denominator or average person comment in the previous post, it’s all a compromise, the mastering engineer typically isn’t hearing anything all that pleasant while he’s working on it and optimizing it for the typical listener
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And that would be me. So if you want to know what demi on fent signed off on is get the copy the sound guy has on his hard drive buy the monitors amp and dac hes got on top of his console. Bam you got “what the artist intended” hard and fast. you want audiophile add an exact replica of the sound guys control room.
Just by being here, you are already far ahead of the average consumer lol, along with some of the gear you own too
If you want what the artist intended, you just have to be the artist lol
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We got to take a stand somewhere so im going with the engineers copy hes got squirrled away for better or worse. Im holding on to a fantasy that the sound guys have beautifully mastered copy of our most cherished songs they keep for themselves.
Still say hifi is cheaper than collecting cars. 
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The artists intents a feel in the lyrics and instruments.
The sound engineer captures that while giving it is own spin.
The mastering engineer makes it sound good in most situations.
And then it ends up on some combination of gear nobody before ever saw comming.
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Or go see a live concert. That’s the only real way I know… hey come to think of it, I’ve never heard a live show sound like the recording. Damn this conundrum ASR! lol
My beef isn’t with measurements per se, they at least are consistent, albeit if of questionable value as we know. My problem with the review I read is that he ended the review with I can NOT recommend said piece of equipment because my measurements show noise. Not what the equipment actually sounds like. No opinion given on that and IMO it’s a BS way to recommend equipment. Incidentally, the Topping piece of equipment at 1/4 of the price measured better… as he can clearly point to in the measurements.
The video is worth seeing if you have not seen it… your comment is literally the conclustion.
My idea of enjoying music has always been… well… hi-fi, as in high fidelity, as in, give me all the truth. Don’t add color. Don’t add detail. It’s cheating.
The world I want, a world without shitty microphones, re-amped guitars, and mastering engineers working only to reproduce what happened in the studio to perfection, doesn’t exist… and ASR needs to learn this.
Steve guttenberg says chesky records is what you seek.
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We’re talking about the artists intent here. Take a watch at this whole interview. I love shit like this. Towards the end Steve Jordan start talking about mastering.
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Im 50/50 movies/music. So just couldnt resist.
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Thanks. I added all this to my Youtube “Watch Later” list and will all give you likes in a few hours because… I did not look at the forum for like two weeks and now I’m out of " 
's ".
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Who dont like gear porn and you get to see how the sausage is made.
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