Worldman Senior Member Joined: 16 Nov 2004 Posts: 1,745 Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA Expertise: Professional
Espresso: Expobar Office Control Grinder: Cimbali 6/S
Posted Fri Jun 5, 2009, 9:05am Subject: Starbucks has ruined espresso much the same way that digital audio ruined audio!
In reading over other posts in this section (vide: Rant of the ANGRY Barista) where the gist is anti *$’s, I came to consider the 2 long standing “passions” of my life:
Espresso & its derivatives, and
Audio.
My first audio “system” was a Magnavox flip down turntable with 2 fold-out speakers that I bought with the final month’s pay from my summer job while I was 14 y.o. (1967). I was paid $25 a week as a stock boy at a company owned and operated by my father and 4 of his brothers. (A 5th brother worked there but “only” as truck driver and had no ownership in the business.) It was a tradition in our family, i.e. my brothers and male cousins all seemed to serve as warehouse slave for the summer of their 14th year.
Before you think the $25 was a rip-off pay, you need to consider that this was in 1967 where a dollar went pretty far. Still, I and my cohorts worked a pretty fair amount for this stipend unloading trucks, stocking shelves, but mostly, filling orders and stuffing boxes for delivery the next day to the customers. The company was a wholesale candy and confections business and its customers were mostly small, corner stores…the kind you may have frequented as a small child growing up in a small town to get your Necco wafers or Milky Way bar or ??
I remember taking my prized audio “system” home and finding that I hadn’t considered the software issue as it was now September, my summer job (& income) ended and having no records with which to hear my audio system. (Hey, why would I have any records as I had nothing on which to play them?)
Well, I ended up getting a part time job flipping burgers at the “new” McDonalds after having procured the requisite “working papers” from my school and parents and soon had the money to buy some records. I also bought audio magazines and ended up upgrading to some pretty decent audio gear such that by the time I graduated high school and came to Pittsburgh to further my education, I had a pretty nice sounding system.
The 1960’s was the early days of stereo (whereas all before was mono) and there were so many things that one could do to improve the sound of a system; various “tweaks”, if you will. First came wires – both interconnect cable and speaker wire. All before had been mere zip cord as speaker wire and the generic interconnects supplied by the equipment manufactures with their components. IIRC, Monster Cable was the first non-standard wire and they did make a big difference…but they only broke the surface. There was/is the issue of how the wires are dressed and supported. Next came various spikes (Tip Toes, et al) on which the components sit and which “couple” the component to the shelf, floor, etc. Many, me included, came to believe that vacuum tubes sounded better in audio applications than transistors which leads to “tube rolling” or trying different tubes of the same size/specification for their sonic attributes. The list is of that which effected sound is not endless, but certainly is large: power line conditioners, electrical outlets, dedicated circuits, mass loading, speaker stands filled with lead shot and/or sand, etc. etc.
These tweaks continued all the way through the advent of what was then called “perfect sound forever” [the nerve!] a.k.a. digital audio and they are still continued today. The difference is that before, if one took the time to investigate and experiment, one could achieve audio sound quality that was downright scary. In a darkened room (we mostly listened in the early morning hours as the power grid was “cleaner” since most people were asleep) with records meticulously cared for, it was very much possible to hear audio that fooled you into thinking that you were either transported to the recording site or (my personal favorite) that the musicians were in your listening room performing directly for you…the sound was that palpable. Check out this site as it is pretty accurate though carried to the extreme that we can now achieve as adults with adult income.
Today, with digital audio, what we have is a scenario where all can achieve an acceptable mediocrity of sound. The “holy grail” of realistic sound now seems further off and not something for which most people strive.
Now comes espresso! I started drinking espresso while on an extended trip to Brazil back in the 1970’s. (NB: the standard coffee in Brazil is not espresso but I had dinner regularly at a nice Italian restaurant where espresso was served and became “hooked”.) I returned to Pittsburgh with a stovetop Moka pot and continued the quest for that perfect espresso.
Imagine what it was like back them trying to get good machinery and fresh roasted coffee beans!
Then came Starbucks, Caribou, Seattle’s Best, et al…a veritable espresso on every street corner. The proliferation of these mega shops is such that they have taught many of our fellow citizens what and espresso is: a mechanized shot of over roasted (and stale!) beans lost in 20 oz. of milk and covered over with various flavorings and/or sweeteners.
A co-worker recently asked me what spoon he should get for his wife to “apply” milk to her cappuccino. He (& she) would not accept that proper milk was poured from the pitcher directly into the waiting shot of fresh pulled espresso. Why, that is not the way it is done in those “big name” espresso shops.
Maybe it is just that as I have recently turned 56, I am just being an old fart and harkening back to the good old days…but really…is there any sound better than that Dyna Steroe 70 / PAS 3X / Thorens 125 / Mayware arm / Prometian cartridge / Spendor BC1s / MIT wires and cables, etc?
…and is there any espresso better than those pulled by that old bartender at the little café on Lake Como?
gime2much Senior Member Joined: 10 Dec 2004 Posts: 1,487 Location: Sunny S Fl Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: La Pavoni, Astoria comm, 2... Grinder: La Pavoni Zip, Bunn... Drip: Bunn comm Roaster: Popcorn popper (air),co/ufo
Posted Fri Jun 5, 2009, 10:58am Subject: Re: Starbucks
So sad and so true Len.
Amazing! I also bought my first system, same as you describe, with funds from my summer job at Dairy Queen in 1967. $1.00 per hour and 65 (13 x 5) hours per week. Bought it at the old K-Mart.
I just left our house a few moments ago where a Scott FM tuner (1959) and a Scott 299c amp (1961) was moaning blues thru a set of 4312 JBL studio monitors(1970). How I love the sound of those old Scott amps with their 7591 tubes.
I'm hoping I can find time here at the bar tonight to work a bit on the old Harman Kardon 260 that will be set up to play jazz via the reel to reel in the coffee room.
Think I'll have a nice press pot of Sumatra and watch the soft glow of the tubes here in a few minutes while the rain drizzles down the glass door.
Posted Fri Jun 5, 2009, 11:24am Subject: Re: Starbucks
Digital audio reproduces exactly what the artist intends you to hear.
Silicon is so fast that you can put together a system pretty cheaply that minimizes anything other than the audio on the disk ( I use studio monitors as computer speakers and have a quite expensive professional sound card, all my music is stored using lossless codecs, etc... )
And ultimately the noise introduced by your equipment is a flaw, not a feature. If the artist wanted you to hear the tube distortion he'd have put it in there to begin with.
So in some senses espresso is paralleling audio, though not how you describe it. The (older, analogue) HX machines introduce uncontrolled variables ( temperature changes ), but a strict ( newer, digital ) PID'd machine like the GS/3 and whatever comes of the temp/pressure profiling machines that some of the big guys are playing with will translate exactly what the artist ( grower, roaster & barista ) intends in to the cup, much like modern silicon audio.
There is a very heated discussion going on at Yahoo Groups ClassicsStereo with a lot of very expreienced people that can't agree on this issue: analog vs digital.
I don't know the answer but I know what I prefer...tube. I not only made a good living for over 30 years as a digital electronics engineer but have owned several thousand dollars worth of audio equipment, both types.
Yes I do have a pid on one of my machines and by the way.....The lever crowd might take exception to your espresso statement ;-]
Hmmm...maybe and maybe not. As I mostly listen to classical music I suppose that the artist (let's say a symphony orcxhestra and its conductor) have no intention for you to hear other than what they are hearing. In my 40 years experience, this is more closely achieved by analogue and tubes.
BrainInAJar Said:
Silicon is so fast that you can put together a system pretty cheaply that minimizes anything other than the audio on the disk...
And ultimately the noise introduced by your equipment is a flaw, not a feature. If the artist wanted you to hear the tube distortion he'd have put it in there to begin with.
True, tube noise and analogue distortion are flaws in the music. However, I opine that digital distortions, e.g. the flattening of images) are also anomolies that MUST be eliminated. This can only be done by the use of analogue (well, sort of). As a regular attendee of live concerts (symphony, ballet, opera, revitals, etc.) I find that the analogue route is truer to the original and preserves more of the "feel" of the music.
BrainInAJar Said:
So in some senses espresso is paralleling audio, though not how you describe it. The (older, analogue) HX machines introduce uncontrolled variables ( temperature changes ), but a strict ( newer, digital ) PID'd machine like the GS/3 and whatever comes of the temp/pressure profiling machines that some of the big guys are playing with will translate exactly what the artist ( grower, roaster & barista ) intends in to the cup, much like modern silicon audio.
Hmmmm...again, while I see your point, mine was more that the big corporate coffee bars have diluted the base beverage so as to have little or no relationship to the original.
This is not really true. Digital audio allows for perfect, easily made copies of the ... digital audio. That is why you can rip a CD to a disk or iPod and have it sound the same.
However, this copy-perfection hides more subtle issues.
Conversion of analog to digital-- all sound is originally analog, meaning that there are no discrete steps in pitch or time. To be made digital, the analog signal must be encoded, meaning it is converted into a numerical language that can be used to translate it back to an approximation of the original. This language converts the continuous features of the sound into precise numbers. So for example, if the actual instantaneous value of an analog signal is 35.14732232731221, it might get encoded to "35", losing the fractional part. If the encoding "language" is good enough, it will have enough information so that the human ear cannot distinguish 35 from 35.14732232731221.
Original CD formats encoded its signals at around 44KHz, which means it could accurately represent sounds at half that frequency (22KHz), which is above the hearing range for most people. This makes technical sense, but in practice many people experienced the music from this format as too "bright" or tinny or sharp. Newer formats double the sampling frequency and are able to produce a richer sound, but this also doubles the storage space. In any case, a digital format is only a numerical approximation of the original sound, even if that approximation is very close.
Lossy-vs-lossless formats-- CDs are encoded in a lossless format, meaning that all the information from the original sound image is stored in the format. However, many of the formats that we experience audio in are lossy. Examples of this are MP3, AAC, and MPEG. These formats conserve space by tossing out information that should be very hard for the ear to hear. Lossless audio formats take up a lot of storage space; the lossy ones significantly less. That is why some MP3 files are '128 kbit' and others are '16 kbit'-- lower bit rates are compressed more severely and are of much lower sound quality.
So the digital image can be very close to what the artist wants you to hear, but it is only a very close approximation. Usually the approximation difference doesn't matter. But this is true only if you are listening to an original, uncompressed image of that sound. And this still doesn't obviate the need for high quality equipment to turn that faithful digital image into a good reproduction-- bad earphones still sound bad with good input.
As a sound professional, I listen to whatever is left from installs, friends and favours, and stuff that I've revived from the scrap-heap in my home, and use whatever industrial and commercial appliances that can do the work that I need them to do, whether it be Musical Theatre, Opera, Rock, Blues, Calypso, Native Flutes, or Thrash/Alternative.
The problem that a lot of discussions get to is that they include how one feels about certain things (which can be coloured by what one thinks of many other things) and isn't really something that lends itself to metrics, with what things actually do, or their measured performances. First off, Audio is analogue. Any digital format will, bu definition, be a translation, not a reproduction, of what was in the studio or at the event being recorded. Period. Tubes and other analogue kit colour sound reproduction. They just do. I don't care what system you have, or what cables, turntable amps or speakers, if I pay a recording of a quartet, and then have the same quartet play in your living room, and you can't tell the difference, you have tin ears. Again, period. Most people like the colour that tubes and other analogue kit adds to music, and that's why they prefer the differences introduced to music by analogue gear, and others like what the signal looks like after passing through the A to D and then the D to A translation. They like the fact that, after all that manipulation, the output signal; on their test kit, with it's resolution, looks far more like the signal that went in. My favorite story is the test bed with engineers and audiophiles from all over (famous audiophile kit designers and reviewers form audiophile magazines) to test speaker cables, and compare them to one another. All of the results were spread inconclusively among the thirty participants. Except one product. A statistically significant (almost unanimous) response to one set of cables. The ten gage jumper cables from the bed of one of the tester's pickup truck.
What I'm saying is that you're both pretty, girls. No need to fight. Digital is bad because there is a tendency to use it's easy manipulation as a crutch instead of good studio and recording techniques. Audio compression is abused as is storage compression, with it's losses and those fo smaller resolution factors. While there are great digital audio kits out there, the most prolific is the MP3, which out and out sucks. Comparing these to the fold-out turntable that the OP owned (and I may have bought used as my first stereo system a coupla years later...), I think I preferred that to almost any MP2 player I've heard. And, I still like the K-horns (or my Maggies) driven by a MacIntosh amp fed by a VersaDynamics TT.
To male this espresso equivalent, my goal is to make a cuppa that tastes exactly like the doser smells just after I've ground my coffee. Truth from ground bean to palate, just like the audiophile's goal, truth from source to aural receptors. And to decide that one way is better than the other is folly. The way that makes you happy is *the* way.
Posted Fri Jun 5, 2009, 1:48pm Subject: re: Audio and Espresso
A speaker is a point source. A live ensemble is not. Therefore, without substantial changes in technology, no recording, analog or digital, is ever going to sound 'just like the band/string quartet/klezmer orchestra is right there in my apartment'. Unless you're listening on really high end binaural equipment, in which case it can come a lot closer than speakers can - but it's still not the same thing.
What does this have to do with espresso? Each shot that I pull, just like each musical performance that I do, is a uniquely 'in-the-moment' thing. It's not going to be duplicated, nor would I want it to be, since the same thing all the time, no matter how good, gets boring. Part of the joy of espresso for me, like the joy I get from the music I play, is the capacity to constantly discover new things in places I've been before.
The quality of the non-audiophile, averagely available, easily affordable audio system today is far greater than it ever has been. Digital is a big part of what raised the floor for the average listener. A decently encoded MP3 sounds far better than over-squashed FM radio or a cassette tape that's being played on a Walkman that's never been degaussed. In an ideal world, in perfect circumstances, in a well-engineered listening environment, analog equipment may sound more pleasing to discerning ears. The fact of the matter is that most people don't care. Just like with espresso. The folks who hang out here are the fringe and what matters to them is probably never even going to cross the consciousness of the average *$ customer. Sad (maybe), but true. But nobody's ruined my espresso, and no technology has ruined the joy I get from music.
gime2much Senior Member Joined: 10 Dec 2004 Posts: 1,487 Location: Sunny S Fl Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: La Pavoni, Astoria comm, 2... Grinder: La Pavoni Zip, Bunn... Drip: Bunn comm Roaster: Popcorn popper (air),co/ufo
Posted Fri Jun 5, 2009, 1:59pm Subject: Re: Starbucks
Psyd Said:
I don't care what system you have, or what cables, turntable amps or speakers, if I pay a recording of a quartet, and then have the same quartet play in your living room, and you can't tell the difference, you have tin ears. Again, period.
There is another point most people miss...The listening room influences the overall sound almost as much any gear you might be using!
Psyd Said:
My favorite story is the test bed with engineers and audiophiles from all over (famous audiophile kit designers and reviewers form audiophile magazines) to test speaker cables, and compare them to one another. All of the results were spread inconclusively among the thirty participants. Except one product. A statistically significant (almost unanimous) response to one set of cables. The ten gage jumper cables from the bed of one of the tester's pickup truck.
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