Originally posted by mdrconsult:
Originally posted by Altec:
The programming in the Trinnov and Audyssey cannot possibly take into consideration the subtitles which must be considered to make a system be as good as it can be (no matter how powerful or trick the computer programming might be). Only a skilled and thinking human at the controls can do that.
Altec,
I am not disagreeing with you, but I do want to point out something. Your comment reminds me very much of the fighter pilots I used to talk to who claimed that there was no way a computer was going to fly there plane better then they could. They all firmly believed that it would take a "skilled and thinking human at the controls" in order to fly the plane at its best. Well guess what, computers have come a long way baby and there isn't a snow balls chance in hell that those fighter pilots could fly there planes today without the computers making the actual decisions on which surface to move and to what degree. Now granted these are very different fields of engineering, but it won't be a surprise to me when computer based systems are doing a better job at room correction then we the "skilled and thinking" can ever do. I will admit that we might not be there yet, but I would bet that we will be before very long.
Happy New Year to You All! I knew that somebody would bring up that argument. Trust me, it is not a grudge of mine against "automation". I'm all for computer integration whenever it can be done
truly better than what a human could do.
In this case, we aren't there yet.........
Things are not necessarily as easy or clear cut as they may seem on the surface. In tuning a room / speaker interface, the devil is in the details...details only a human ear/brain can know and process. Tuning a room for best musical presentation is really equal parts science and art. Sorry, there isn't much "art" in the fighter pilot example you cited.
I think tuning a piano is more like tuning a room in that it requires some degree of independent intrepretation of both the technical data and the realities of
how the system sounds to a real human ear. Present day computers are not very good at the "art" part. They can only mimic. They are in a sense a blunt instrument which can only impress a pre-programmed set of instructions upon the data received - in this case by a relatively "dumb" sensor (the microphone array). The programmers who write the instructions cannot possibly know, or take into consideration the unlimited subtle variations in individual rooms, speakers, layouts, and yes, preferences of real humans with real ears.
Perhaps in a world a couple decades down the road when this can be done at a price that somebody other than the Pentagon can afford. But not today, not in a real-world consumer product.
In the meantime, my advise is still to optimize the room's acoustics and the layout of the speakers. Doing this will greatly reduce or eliminate the need for equalization and other DSP processing.
My greatest fear is that manufacturers will market devices like the Audyssey and Trinnov to consumers, giving them the false impression that they do not need to give any thought or concern to the acoustics of the room or where they place the speakers...that these gizmos will make everything "perfect".
That is the farthest thing from the truth, and is just as misleading as telling people they can eat all they want, and some "magic pill" will keep them from gaining weight.