Bokeh...is the look getting dated?

[Wrathwilde]

and even more shocked when they discover good old vinyl sounds better than anything

Only if you can afford decent equipment, and climate controlled storage for your collection. The nice thing about CD players (was) that a cheap one, purchased at your local superstore, would still sound better than any Record Player you were likely to find at those same stores... and CDs don't tend to warp when your house hit's 105(f) for a week while you're out of town. The current crop of CD players may not sound as nice as today's top of the line turn tables, but...

Back in the late 80's I had a Pioneer Elite PD-91 Reference CD player, I believe it had dual 24bit Burr Brown DACs that, to this day, sounded better than any other piece of audio (delivery) equipment I've ever heard, including the best high end turntables. The sound was so warm and smooth it was incredible to listen to. I had that player over 15 years, I miss it's sound, but not the swapping of CDs. I have currently ripped my entire CD collection at the highest rates possible, and feed it into my Pioneer Elite SC-27, with Wolfson 192kHz/24-bit DACs, which I would describe as clear and smooth, but not as warm as my PD-91. The PD-91 made every receiver I ever hooked it up to sound like a high dollar tube amp. I was under the impression my SC-27 had Burr Brown DACs when I purchased it, it does... but only for analog to digital. The Wolfson's are excellent, but the Burr Brown DACs in the PD-91 were better still.

Unfortunately a lot of CD's, from the mid 90's on, were mastered using dynamic range compression to make them "louder" , but vinyl wasn't immune either.

Hopefully, now that CD's are dying, downloadable music will start to be delivered, and widely supported, in High Definition... without the dynamic range compression that's been distorting music for decades. I can't wait until 192-kHz/32-bit mastering is standard, and lossless encoding is the norm... Put that through some quality DACs, or a tube amp, and it will sound better than any turntable available at any price.

Cheers,
Wrathwilde

tl;dr - A properly mastered CD played on a Pioneer Elite PD-91 will sound better than the same album on vinyl... no matter which turntable you own... all other equipment being equal.

 

[dirtcastle]

Dirtcastle,

Cones vs. Electrostatics? - really?

Vinyl on good electrostatics will floor you

ET

No doubt... electrostatic is amazing. I can't deny that.

For super clean theatrical/classical/movie stuff, I would give the nod to electrostatic for accuracy and low noise/distortion. Most of the music I listen to is extremely bass-heavy, hip hop, funk, reggae, dubstep, etc. Cones are still the standard for bass music, if I'm not mistaken. Plus, the recordings don't necessarily "sound" better on super high end speakers. A lot of the music I listen to has been intentionally degraded and/or is expected to be played on systems that will distort the music and sacrifice large swaths of the sound spectrum. Lots of bass music sounds different at different volumes, because of the distortions. And that's not always a bad thing.

Ideally, I would go with a "mixed" setup... both electro and cone (and maybe even a true mix of cone subwoofer with electrostatic satellites). But I'm pretty easy to please, actually. I've got 20 year old cones that do me just fine. 8)

 

[KeithR]

You are correct about the actual meaning of the word

No, he's not.

Bokeh is the quality of the OOF area. Whether the OOF area is smooth, or harsh, or somewhere in between, it's all bokeh - good bokeh, poor bokeh, or so-so bokeh.

 

[crasher8]

No and in a word…...

Lensbaby

 

[keithfullermusic]

I don't think you can judge where photography is going by the views of people hiring you to photograph their wedding. When people want pictures of events they often times don't want artsy photos. They simply want you to take "nice" aka boring pictures of the event.

The last few weddings I went to, people were commenting afterwards about how the pictures werent good (I wasn't the photographer). To me, they looked great. I started to realize that many people just want pictures of people, and when there is a bokeh, people are like "that's too artsy, I only like the pictures of the people."

My point being is that no, I don't think the bokeh look is becoming dated. There are just people who never wanted it and never will.

 

[EvilTed]

Dirtcastle,

Me too and a lot of early Rocksteady and Reggae from Jamaica.

Speaking of a hybrid approach, that's exactly what I have

Sanders 10-C hybrid electrostatic with transmission line bass and digital crossover, ESL amp for the panels and Magtech for the woofers.
Full range 20Hz-20KHz.
There's not may speakers made with that low end.

http://www.sanderssoundsystems.com/

ET

 

[K-amps]

Dirtcastle,

Cones vs. Electrostatics? - really?

Vinyl on good electrostatics will floor you

ET

On mids yes, on highs it's a toss, but on the lower frqs, cones walk over all types.... thats why I have a custom hybrid system.

 

[dirtcastle]

ET: Woah... incredible setup! I definitely lost my 20KHz hearing a long time ago. But I can still feel a 20Hz bass when it's cranked up.

I also dig all of that late 60s/70s JA stuff. If you're ever looking for mixes (mostly mp3s, alas), check out my @ericjnord Twitta acct. I post lots of mixes in all sorts of genres. I'm what's known as a person with a music problem. ;-)

I feel lucky that my obsession with photo quality hasn't infected my audio needs: I still have the same Adcom/Paradigm setup I bought as a kid back in the 80s.

K-amps: Ah, didn't know about the highs. Sounds like a cool setup.

 

[Wild]

Diffraction is a lens property, and it is the same for a given lens, no matter what body you attach.

A High MP body has better resolution and can see diffraction better, but it is not any more or less.

Actually diffraction has a lot to do with the body (copied and pasted from the-digital-picture.com):

I guess you misunderstood a bit.
It says that the higher the pixel density, the sooner you reach the point in which diffraction takes its toll. It's the same as when a not-so-sharp lens looks acceptable on a 10MP camera, awful on a 18MP one.
This doesn't make diffraction a body property as much as it doesn't make it sharpness.

Potayto-potaahto. Yes, technically, diffraction is a lens property. But...it's awfully hard to use a lens for taking pictures all by itself, without a camera attached. So, like sharpness, diffraction is effectively a property of an imaging system - lens plus camera.

I stand corrected. ;D I guess I did misinterpret that a bit, however I think Neuro summed it up perfectly.

 

[K-amps]

ET: Woah... incredible setup! I definitely lost my 20KHz hearing a long time ago. But I can still feel a 20Hz bass when it's cranked up.

I also dig all of that late 60s/70s JA stuff. If you're ever looking for mixes (mostly mp3s, alas), check out my @ericjnord Twitta acct. I post lots of mixes in all sorts of genres. I'm what's known as a person with a music problem. ;-)

I feel lucky that my obsession with photo quality hasn't infected my audio needs: I still have the same Adcom/Paradigm setup I bought as a kid back in the 80s.

K-amps: Ah, didn't know about the highs. Sounds like a cool setup.

Good to meet someone with the same obsessions

I had to sell my ESL hybrid set-up to fund some of my lense obsessions , right now It's an all cone set-up on mains; but Modular, since I can only afford a HT set-up, so the dedicated Music set-up had to go. I design my own speakers/ enclosures and tweak my power amps. I have 4 modded Luxman M-117's bridged to power 4 15" subs. 2 are TC subs (16Hz to 50Hz) and 2 are jbl Cinema woofs (50Hz to 250Hz) . The mids are B&C 6md38's (250Hz to 3kHz) and the tweets are Vifa XT-25's 3 per channel. The Center channel are Martin Logans (for vocals) and the surrounds are Bose 901's. A Krell KAV-250a powers the mids/ highs and an Adcom 545ii powers the centers. I used to upgrade and sell Adcome 555's a few years back when I had time. Brings back memories... :

 

[dirtcastle]

I had to sell my ESL hybrid set-up to fund some of my lense obsessions , right now It's an all cone set-up on mains; but Modular, since I can only afford a HT set-up, so the dedicated Music set-up had to go. I design my own speakers/ enclosures and tweak my power amps. I have 4 modded Luxman M-117's bridged to power 4 15" subs. 2 are TC subs (16Hz to 50Hz) and 2 are jbl Cinema woofs (50Hz to 250Hz) . The mids are B&C 6md38's (250Hz to 3kHz) and the tweets are Vifa XT-25's 3 per channel. The Center channel are Martin Logans (for vocals) and the surrounds are Bose 901's. A Krell KAV-250a powers the mids/ highs and an Adcom 545ii powers the centers. I used to upgrade and sell Adcome 555's a few years back when I had time. Brings back memories... :

Wow. That's inspiring.

 

[RLPhoto]

Never! as its a fundamental aspect of photography. THE MIGHTY POWER OF BRUTE FORCE APERTURE!

 

[IIIHobbs]

It may have already been said here (I didn't read every response), but it is the photographers choice to represent the captured image as they choose. Whether the subject is completely isolated from it's environment or a small detail of it, the "look" of the Bokeh, in all it's varying forms, is just one aspect of how each photograph is individually created.