The "audio reference" idea and/or music reproduction, what is your opinion?

[tomelex]

In light of the above, a while back I played Mario's Truthful Drums Recording at his calibrated level, and saw 116.9dBz.

I only let it go for a very few seconds as it sounded like somebody was beating the crap out of my speakers with a baseball bat or similar weapon, as they rather faithfully produced a "live" drum kit sound.

Because my amplifier's output exceed the power rating for the speakers, I thought it best not to press my luck.

mix engineers have to do a lot of processing to get drums to "sound" more realistic from a stereo speaker pair, one listen to a live kit and you realize this instantly.

 

[tomelex]

You seem to be saying that there is a supernatural element to it..? I don't think there is. All we would have to do is get close to recreating the live 'sound field'.

How precise would we need to be? Omnidirectional instruments would need omnidirectional-ish speakers of about the right dimensions, but something like the human voice would surely map pretty well onto a moderate-sized cone speaker in a box about the size of a human head..?

Ordinary recordings, of course, are not made this way. They are not 'dry', and they are routinely EQ'ed and compressed. Most audiophile systems are a bit feeble when it comes to power and frequency response (valve amps and little speakers on stands..?), so we don't have any direct experience of what this experiment would sound like. I would bet that it could be made to work.

And if anyone here has ever been accidentally 'fooled' when walking by a lucky combination of recording, system, room and open door, then it has already been demonstrated to be possible.

I think we could fool almost anyone with the right combination of things as you describe, but it aint easy and it is very definitely the exception rather than the rule with stereo, and with this added loss due to the door and the hallway your are walking down. My sense of hearing is particularily keen when it comes to this realism thing, maybe that works against me, but long long ago, after studying stereo and playing with audio gear, I came to the realization that it aint real and it never will be, and have been more a detail freak ever since, detail to me gets me the satisfaction, along with and perhaps even more importantly, just being "moved" by the particular music, then the detail is a bonus, rithym and stuff like that blah blah etceeeeeteeeeera.

 

[tomelex]

No purely acoustic instrument is.

However:

Electric guitars and basses, the Fender Rhodes, the Hammond B3, among others, might be instruments that don't work very well without a speaker attached (I'll ignore the idea they can be run straight into the board, since there will still be a speaker involved), and I will hazard to say, that in the right hands, they are musical instruments.

I feel I have been scrutinized hahahaha

 

[fas42]

Easily the best I've heard drums being reproduced was with Bryston monoblocks, and near top of the line Dynaudio. This had the bite of the real thing, effortlessly - and the volume could be pushed without flinching in the slightest. As a contrast, some very costly JBLs down the hallway were so weak kneed in comparison - using a lower powered amp will never work ...

 

[Thomas savage]

One would tend to think so, but I have found it otherwise. The transients don't cause a problem, only sustained high average level are possibly a real problem. I speak of dynamic speakers, panels may have issues ...

I've been hammering my speakers for years at high levels - main issue has been amplifiers shutting down for internal protection reasons, wait for them to cool and everything's fine.

Lol don't buy vivids any time soon, they don't like this sort of thing...

 

[Cosmik]

We are discussing two separate things here:

1. Using audio components to replace real musicians, drums and a 10kW PA in order to sound exactly like a rock concert from 300 yards away.
2. Using audio components to reproduce the experience of sitting in the audience at a concert 30 yards from the stage, while sitting 3 yards from our speakers.

Item (1) is only being discussed because of a myth that says a good hi fi system should always sound 'real' from outside the room. This myth has only developed because occasionally we all experience the "Gosh, that sounds real!" moment when a particular recording is playing on our stereos and we step out to make a cup of tea. The way audiophiles do, they then think "This must be a sign of a really good system! I will tell everyone that this is one of the Golden Rules of Audio". It is a meaningless myth.

Item (2) is the only one that matters, and depends on many facets that cannot be heard outside the listening position, like coherence between the stereo channels.

Does the Beolab 90 sound 'most realistic' from outside the room when on its narrow ("audiophile") setting, or its omni-directional ("party") setting? I'll bet it's the latter for obvious reasons, but for the best imaging at the listening position we would want to choose the audiophile setting.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I don't know if many of you watched the recent PBS Soundbreaking series. It started basically with the 1950's. George Martin produced the series or at least had a hand in it. A large part of what it was about are ways to make music have impact, communicate emotion and touch people. Not however by recording realistically. Recording increasingly since about 60 years ago has mostly been about inventive, unreal sounds. Prototypical example is electrifying the guitar. It becomes an altogether different instrument electrified. In the series they said, with an electric guitar you no longer need a horn section. Music even when acoustically sourced has been increasingly about electrifying music. About releasing things we can imagine in the heads of artists who can't make that sound simply with acoustical instruments.

So now, great minimalist recordings, to a great many people, even audiophiles sounds lacking or boring in comparison. It is like our food has become. Too salty, too sugary, to loud tasting. Try and switch to a more natural less hyped food and most people's pallet has seen the taste equivalent of the loudness wars.

So yes, though many, many audiophiles espouse recreating the absolute sound, they don't know it (and yet always think they do), and they actually don't want or at least many of them don't. Once I started recording a little bit a few years ago, I could hear what I thought were natural aspects of recordings that weren't. They were tasteful, artful reverb or delay or a blending of things. Not natural. And so many hear these and will sometimes even point out "hey listen to such and such" not realizing a good mixer has fooled them with some processing.

So this TAS idea misguides most people.

Oddly, progress has been made, and gear has gotten better, and big orchestra sound is something that is impressive enough it may not need much hyping up when done well. I think back years ago when all gear was more limited (thinking especially of speakers here). I knew people with big spaces and K-horns that somehow had the dynamics, and impact and lack of strain that was like the real thing itself. But mostly in those particular areas. Mini-monitors that could image almost beyond reality, but had no real bass and no impact, no scale to the size of the image. Electrostats that were quick, and clean and highly detailed, but lacked solidity and power so the sound was ghostly and ethereal. It was the classic case of the blind men and the elephant.

All these approaches in better examples have upped good aspects and even more so improved their weaknesses. We still are limited by the two (or five) channels of the recording. I do think with a bit more R&D, with DSP and with more channels we can get much closer to really recreating a genuine sound field. Whether that will require more than 20 channels I don't know, but think it likely can be done with that many. However, you need a market for products to make that happen. 20 channels is a no go for almost everyone. Heck 5 real channels is not used by more than maybe 2% of music lovers. So people who color their sound to taste shouldn't be looked down upon. Genuine accuracy to reality isn't possible. Genuine accuracy to the recording fortunately is easy peasy in the modern world.

 

[Blumlein 88]

We are discussing two separate things here:

1. Using audio components to replace real musicians, drums and a 10kW PA in order to sound exactly like a rock concert from 300 yards away.
2. Using audio components to reproduce the experience of sitting in the audience at a concert 30 yards from the stage, while sitting 3 yards from our speakers.

Item (1) is only being discussed because of a myth that says a good hi fi system should always sound 'real' from outside the room. This myth has only developed because occasionally we all experience the "Gosh, that sounds real!" moment when a particular recording is playing on our stereos and we step out to make a cup of tea. The way audiophiles do, they then think "This must be a sign of a really good system! I will tell everyone that this is one of the Golden Rules of Audio". It is a meaningless myth.

Item (2) is the only one that matters, and depends on many facets that cannot be heard outside the listening position, like coherence between the stereo channels.

Does the Beolab 90 sound 'most realistic' from outside the room when on its narrow ("audiophile") setting, or its omni-directional ("party") setting? I'll bet it's the latter for obvious reasons, but for the best imaging at the listening position we would want to choose the audiophile setting.

I'll disagree with you here respectfully. I like imaging too. In the home it provides intimacy and enhanced apparent realism. However, in fact, you don't get that imaging all that much with many venues. Maybe it is because I have spent more time in the cheap seats not near the orchestra. The coherency of the central position with stereo seems not so important or noticed listening live. If anything the envelopment is more real than stereo-like coherency. One reason I think surround works so much better for that type music than most popular music.

 

[fas42]

Item (2) is the only one that matters, and depends on many facets that cannot be heard outside the listening position, like coherence between the stereo channels.

Well, actually it works for both: in the room the presentation is per how it was recorded, nice and intimate for a chamber group, or a vast stadium of sound, if the microphones were set up capture a big acoustic; moving outside the room then works exactly as it does for live sound - you can still 'hear' the qualities of the presentation matching the direct sound. Coherence between the channels becomes of very low relevance within the room; there is enough information being reproduced for the brain to resolve what "the sound means", anywhere in the room; the most striking consequence of the two channels functioning is that the soundstage of a pure mono recording remains precisely centred over a line in front of the listener.

 

[fas42]

The coherency of the central position with stereo seems not so important or noticed listening live. If anything the envelopment is more real than stereo-like coherency. One reason I think surround works so much better for that type music than most popular music.

I agree about the envelopment thing - that's what I enjoy in my playback. You also get the "thereness" of the sources of the sound elements, if that is how it was recorded. For me, surround is a dud - a gimmick which will most likely confuse the brain if the direct sound is of sufficient quality - I have yet to hear a multi-channel which does anything for me.

 

[Thomas savage]

I don't know if many of you watched the recent PBS Soundbreaking series. It started basically with the 1950's. George Martin produced the series or at least had a hand in it. A large part of what it was about are ways to make music have impact, communicate emotion and touch people. Not however by recording realistically. Recording increasingly since about 60 years ago has mostly been about inventive, unreal sounds. Prototypical example is electrifying the guitar. It becomes an altogether different instrument electrified. In the series they said, with an electric guitar you no longer need a horn section. Music even when acoustically sourced has been increasingly about electrifying music. About releasing things we can imagine in the heads of artists who can't make that sound simply with acoustical instruments.

So now, great minimalist recordings, to a great many people, even audiophiles sounds lacking or boring in comparison. It is like our food has become. Too salty, too sugary, to loud tasting. Try and switch to a more natural less hyped food and most people's pallet has seen the taste equivalent of the loudness wars.

So yes, though many, many audiophiles espouse recreating the absolute sound, they don't know it (and yet always think they do), and they actually don't want or at least many of them don't. Once I started recording a little bit a few years ago, I could hear what I thought were natural aspects of recordings that weren't. They were tasteful, artful reverb or delay or a blending of things. Not natural. And so many hear these and will sometimes even point out "hey listen to such and such" not realizing a good mixer has fooled them with some processing.

So this TAS idea misguides most people.

Oddly, progress has been made, and gear has gotten better, and big orchestra sound is something that is impressive enough it may not need much hyping up when done well. I think back years ago when all gear was more limited (thinking especially of speakers here). I knew people with big spaces and K-horns that somehow had the dynamics, and impact and lack of strain that was like the real thing itself. But mostly in those particular areas. Mini-monitors that could image almost beyond reality, but had no real bass and no impact, no scale to the size of the image. Electrostats that were quick, and clean and highly detailed, but lacked solidity and power so the sound was ghostly and ethereal. It was the classic case of the blind men and the elephant.

All these approaches in better examples have upped good aspects and even more so improved their weaknesses. We still are limited by the two (or five) channels of the recording. I do think with a bit more R&D, with DSP and with more channels we can get much closer to really recreating a genuine sound field. Whether that will require more than 20 channels I don't know, but think it likely can be done with that many. However, you need a market for products to make that happen. 20 channels is a no go for almost everyone. Heck 5 real channels is not used by more than maybe 2% of music lovers. So people who color their sound to taste shouldn't be looked down upon. Genuine accuracy to reality isn't possible. Genuine accuracy to the recording fortunately is easy peasy in the modern world.

I did , very revealing it was too.

 

[DonH56]

Here's what I posted "over there":

I've been around live music all my life, acoustic, amplified, electronic, as a listener and performer. The term "reference" means different things to different folk, and I use it different ways as well. Sometimes it means the absolute best, the reference against which all else is judged. Other times it is more like a baseline against which other things are compared, sometimes better, sometimes worse (or maybe just different). There are times I really appreciate a live performance, and times I much prefer the recording, for all the usual reasons (the enveloping sound of a concert hall, the intimate presence of a jazz club, versus the ability to really listen to the music in a great recording and pick up nuances hard to catch in a live setting, or maybe I just don't feel like going out, or want to listen to certain songs rather than whatever the group is doing, or listen to songs from multiple groups, etc.) Some venues are poor and yet the (live) music shines through, and sometimes the performance just isn't what I expected or hoped it would be. Sometimes the recording is poorly mastered or recorded and just has no hope of feeling "real". Too many variables.

I would not apply the word "reference" when considering how I judge my system with respect to live music; I would say live instruments, music, and performances (rehearsals, plinking at a friend's house, etc.) provide the context for my listening. That means at times the sound from my system may not be true to life but is the way I like to hear it. Sometimes I like the snap of a drum or piano hammer strike to be sharper and more percussive than it often is live, and I may prefer instruments more in the background behind a singer than they are in a live performance. Or vice versa.

All IME/IMO/FWIWFM/my 0.000001 cent (microcent), etc. - Don

 

[Sal1950]

All IME/IMO/FWIWFM/my 0.000001 cent (microcent), etc. - Don

Don, are we waffling?

 

[Thomas savage]

Don, are we waffling?

Exclusively so...

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

It is a remarkable truism that is hard to adopt because doing so seems like a failure to deliver the "lay" version of what a hi-fi system is supposed to do. But adopt we must. It is just crazy to think that we can reach back before sound was recorded and imagine its characteristics as to replicate them here. I post this bit just on WBF from Dr. Toole:

I totally agree with this. Oversimplified, there is an information transfer concept here. The more sonic information we can capture and record accurately (that's key) from the live performance event and reproduce in our listening rooms, the less our human perceptual system has to work to fill in or "editorialize" to rebuild a perceived sense of the original live event. I also think our perceptual skills to do that are very much influenced by the sum total of our prior listening experience, whether live or reproduced. That cumulatively learned perception, locked in our memory, albeit imperfectly, becomes our "reference standard". It also is the toolset we use internally to recreate a sense of live performance from the imperfect, at best, reproduced sound we have from available media. It naturally follows that the more live music we listen to, the better our internal skills to discern "good" reproduction vs. live.

I also think it is important to distinguish between the sound and the music. The emotional and intellectual appeal of the music itself may distract us from the sound, its accuracy or degree of faithfulness to live sound. Yes, music listening is, in the end, about enjoyment, and I care about the sound quality only to the extent it delivers a quality music listening experience. I, for one, much prefer music listening when delivered with "highest fidelity" according to my own reference standard, in which I strive to include as much live music exposure as possible.

I am in the minority here in preferring classical music above other genres. The good news is that there are a lot of live classical concerts in quality venues for me to enjoy both musically and sonically. I do not find very good seats in those venues expensive, even for world class performances, nothing like even a crappy seat at a pro sports event or even a big name rock concert.

It is also true that engineering standards for classical music reproduction differ quite extensively from those in pop music. It is like apples and oranges to me, though I listen to my selected share of recorded rock, jazz, etc. and I enjoy much of it. I just do not think non-classical engineering, for the most part and for a lot of reasons, is devoted to reproducing a sense of a live musical event. But, yes, enjoyable, listenable music still comes through from multi miked recordings made in dead studios with added artificial effects, etc. And, there is little in the way of live non-classical concerts under decent acoustic conditions from which a listener like me can develop a sense of live, which informs my perception and "reference standard" about how non-classical recordings are supposed to sound.

Multichannel classical recordings, discretely recorded in hi rez, are my thing at home. I have thousands, and I listen to little else. They are not perfect, but I consider them today's best reproduction, easily the closest approach to live sound yet achieved. They bring a lot of listening pleasure and few complaints from me about there being something wrong or missing from the sound.

Going back to the original information transfer premise, Mch 5.1 delivers 2.5 times the information to my ears vs. stereo. And, it is specific useful information about the space, envelopment, center image, tonality, etc., etc., etc. that better reproduces the complex reverberant sound field in the concert hall and the sound of the performers placed within it. Not even stereo at DSD 256 or other ridiculous ultra sampling rates come close in stereo. Many also believe that the next upgrade to some hyper expensive stereo equipment will solve the problem. My experience listening to a lot of highly exalted stereos is that it does not. Something is always missing.

 

[amirm]

Going back to the original information transfer premise, Mch 5.1 delivers 2.5 times the information to my ears vs. stereo. And, it is specific useful information about the space, envelopment, center image, tonality, etc., etc., etc. that better reproduces the complex reverberant sound field in the concert hall and the sound of the performers placed within it. Not even stereo at DSD 256 or other ridiculous ultra sampling rates come close in stereo. Many also believe that the next upgrade to some hyper expensive stereo equipment will solve the problem. My experience listening to a lot of highly exalted stereos is that it does not. Something is always missing.

To this point, adding a couple of plastic $5 speakers to the rear will provide a soundstage and sense of realism better than any stereo every can! That feeling of envelopment just can't be produced with just two channels in front of us.

 

[Sal1950]

To this point, adding a couple of plastic $5 speakers to the rear will provide a soundstage and sense of realism better than any stereo every can! That feeling of envelopment just can't be produced with just two channels in front of us.

Agree,
My use of 4 ch surround dates back to the early 70s. I found that even the simplest Hafler type matrixing to a pair of rear speakers opened up the room in a very enjoyable way. I've used something along those lines on and off ever since.
I find Mark Waldrep's AIX Records Mch BD's to be interesting. He usually provides a number of alternative mixes on the disc. In 5.1 there's an "audience" mix with mainly ambiance in the surrounds and a "stage" mix with places the listener as seated center stage. Also 2 ch stereo and a special headphone mix.
Not so sure on the $5 plastics though. LOL

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

To this point, adding a couple of plastic $5 speakers to the rear will provide a soundstage and sense of realism better than any stereo every can! That feeling of envelopment just can't be produced with just two channels in front of us.

$5? That's going overboard, Amir. I prefer to use decent surround speakers from the same manufacturer. Mine are smaller but otherwise similar to the mains. Full range DSP Room EQ also helps in voicing all channels near identically.

But, yeah, discovering discretely recorded Mch classical music in hi rez from SACD was the absolutely most stunning experience I ever encountered in audio. I was on cloud 9 for days afterward. It seriously changed my life and upended many assumptions and cherished beliefs I had about audio. For instance, why weren't all the audio magazine gurus and "experts" telling me about this in their alleged quest for the best sound? Except for Kal Rubinson, no one was. So, his stock went way up in my estimation, while others and their views went into the toilet. Kal is still the gold standard among audio writers, in my view, not just for Mch, but for room acoustics, DSP EQ, and just general intellectual honesty. You ain't so bad, yourself, Amir.

 

[fas42]

To this point, adding a couple of plastic $5 speakers to the rear will provide a soundstage and sense of realism better than any stereo every can! That feeling of envelopment just can't be produced with just two channels in front of us.

Wrong. Yes, it may vary between individuals because of how their hearing works, but I have had the confirmation of those who are also listening in the room that the sound from just the two speakers is "doing the job". Step 1, increase the volume so that the reflections from all the surfaces in the room are adding to the mix - if this just makes the sound, well, sound "bad" then the system has flaws which are too obvious. A highly competent system can be pushed to "ridiculous" intensities of sound, in the room, without displaying any audible problems - there will be point where the average energy of the sound will just be too much, psychologically - and you'll start to feel exhausted, the emotional hit has gone on for too long - and you'll need to chill out, for a while ...

 

[fas42]

I totally agree with this. Oversimplified, there is an information transfer concept here. The more sonic information we can capture and record accurately (that's key) from the live performance event and reproduce in our listening rooms, the less our human perceptual system has to work to fill in or "editorialize" to rebuild a perceived sense of the original live event. I also think our perceptual skills to do that are very much influenced by the sum total of our prior listening experience, whether live or reproduced. That cumulatively learned perception, locked in our memory, albeit imperfectly, becomes our "reference standard". It also is the toolset we use internally to recreate a sense of live performance from the imperfect, at best, reproduced sound we have from available media. It naturally follows that the more live music we listen to, the better our internal skills to discern "good" reproduction vs. live..

And I agree 100% with this ...