Are there any speakers that output sound essentially indistinguishable from a live performance?

[Blumlein 88]

If you closely miked someone in a relatively dead room, or outdoors reflection free, and play it over a good speaker you can probably manage the trick. Can you do that with a symphony orchestra? NO. Could you with a singer/guitar player, or just acoustic guitar? Yes. Or similar intimate musical sources.

Those live vs recorded demos from way back when recorded musicians outdoors and then played back one musician per speaker with the speaker where the musician would be. I've done that and you can get impressively close to real. You'd think it wouldn't work for a few reasons one of which being the directional sound output of an instrument isn't going to match a speaker. But work it will.

Other times I've been completely convinced have been listening at a doorway outside of a room or down a hallway. In those cases the transducer wasn't always a super high quality one, but it worked anyway. In one instance a solo piano recording just sound flat real on a porch outside a door, while sticking your head inside or walking inside it became merely good hifi. Step out and even knowing the situation it sounded startlingly real.

 

[RayDunzl]

Sometimes speakers produce the live performance, so, how can the answer to the thread title not be "yes"?

Caption Contest!

"Dammit! They're using speakers again!"

Or...

"$50 to see Queen and they aren't even using their own speakers?"

 

[Rja4000]

You may want to read this (although it's in french)
https://www.forumcabasse.org/wiki/L'âme_de_Cabasse_:_la_Live_Music#:~:text=Présentation de la Live Music,-Historique&text=La Live Music, encore appelée,sur place par des enceintes.

Cabasse has been using and promoting direct comparison between live and reproduced music as a development and demonstration method for years.

 

[Promit]

Sometimes speakers produce the live performance, so, how can the answer to the thread title not be "yes"?

View attachment 70874

Caption Contest!

"Dammit! They're using speakers again!"

Or...

"$50 to see Queen and they aren't even using their own speakers?"

This is what I was wondering as well. Even the orchestral stuff I’ve been to typically has sound reinforcement throughout the hall. I mean if we’re talking about sheer acoustic power from the big arrays that power a concert, the solution is quite simple: big high efficiency speakers and unhealthy amounts of amplification. It doesn’t cost as much money as you expect in a home setting.

Plus last I checked, most live shows have audiences. What the heck do you all think the noise floor is at any concert? Honestly now.

 

[Alexanderc]

One hears descriptions of “being there” and also of the performer “being here.” I would much rather imagine I’m in the audience than imagine someone is in my small listening room. That’s a personal preference that others might not share, but the latter form of realism is uncomfortable for me.

 

[HemiRick]

I understood the diff between live amplified music and recorded versions of the same had to be the recording method/equipment? How can it be the speakers when most people at a large live performance only hear speakers?

 

[Alexanderc]

I understood the diff between live amplified music and recorded versions of the same had to be the recording method/equipment? How can it be the speakers when most people at a large live performance only hear speakers?

If that’s your experience, then that’s totally valid. I usually attend performances without amplification so my experience is different.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Sometimes speakers produce the live performance, so, how can the answer to the thread title not be "yes"?

View attachment 70874

Caption Contest!

"Dammit! They're using speakers again!"

Or...

"$50 to see Queen and they aren't even using their own speakers?"

You could have just said YES.

 

[zenmastering]

Not true...

This is impossible as the dynamic range of a live performance exceeds the capability of modern recording equipment to capture. Hence the use of compression and other tricks.

 

[Rja4000]

This is impossible as the dynamic range of a live performance exceeds the capability of modern recording equipment to capture. Hence the use of compression and other tricks.

That's not true.
This is not the reason.

Nowadays, the limitations are in the amp/loudspeakers/neighbours.

And this is not even the reason behind the compression.
The compression is added for commercial reasons: if that seems louder, it must be better.

It all started with broadcasting, when one radio station wanted to get more audience, and, for that, wanted to play 'louder' than its (frequency) neighbours.
Because, for technical and legal reasons, the peak level was limited (for FM, to avoid overlapping your neighbours by too wide a frequency span), they could only play on average level, and therefore were needing compression.

Of course, there were also limitations due to the recording method. Nowadays, those limitations are mostly gone (a good ADC can reproduce 120dB or 20 bits of dynamic range, not to speak about multi track techniques, with multiple microphones), but the need for compression, instead of decreasing, even increases.
It's probably now mostly linked to the way we consume music. Most of the music is played on devices or in environment where playing wide dynamic range and loud enough is simply not possible.
Your HiFi is the very rare exception.
So, commercial music is created in a way most people are able to consume it, within their limited conditions.


Reproducing real music requires a lot of dynamic range, but also to reproduce it at 'real life's level.
We all know about the physiological correction curves, where ear requires more bass at lower level to reproduce the same equilibrium than higher level music.
But adding bass also alters the balance. So the best way is probably to reproduce the music at a level close to the real thing. Which means LOUD.

As one can read in this paper from Cabasse, they say a Gran piano is 4W ("accoustical watts"), and a loudspeaker with 89dB/W/m sensitivity has a yield of 1%. That means that you need 4W x 100 = 400W peak power just to reproduce a gran piano alone at a realistic level on a 89dB/W/m loudspeaker. (Of course, it all depends the distance).

I have no clue where this comes from, or if there really is a scientific background to this.
But that was their theory.

And, to be sure, I personnaly "feel" the music better when played loud "enough". But that's subjective, for sure.

 

[peanuts]

these

 

[JoachimStrobel]

I can look at a photo and judge the quality of the camera and the print because I can see in parallel all other real objects around me. I hence can constantly compare photo vs reality. This works even when the photo has a different content than what’s around.
With music and reproduction, this does not work. While listening to a loudspeaker’s output one has no comparison. Switching does not work, as our time memory is not good enough. The closest is vocal music, as we can hear somebody else speaking while listening. That is why single vocal music is one of the strongest tests.
That feeds the hole industry. We are never sure if the sound we hear is right or if we miss something, and missing is bad. Hence we start adding blue dots to CD to make the sound cooler or do other stuff, always thinking we miss something.
And start searching for the ultimate loudspeaker...

 

[tuga]

Even the orchestral stuff I’ve been to typically has sound reinforcement throughout the hall.

That is very sad. I'm lucky not to have ever listened to a single classical concert that was amplified.

 

[Blumlein 88]

That is very sad. I'm lucky not to have ever listened to a single classical concert that was amplified.

May we all be so lucky in our listening. I really dislike sound reinforcement in classical concerts.

 

[dasdoing]

That is very sad. I'm lucky not to have ever listened to a single classical concert that was amplified.

our city orchestra did it once in an outside performance. It sucks, I prefer a DVD at home

 

[Fluffy]

Sometimes speakers produce the live performance, so, how can the answer to the thread title not be "yes"?

View attachment 70874

Caption Contest!

"Dammit! They're using speakers again!"

Or...

"$50 to see Queen and they aren't even using their own speakers?"

Exactly. All live music I ever heard was through PA speakers. Most modern music cannot be performed acoustically. So yeah, for me live music is by definition coming out of speakers.

Stop saying "live" and mean "un-amplified". Live music = there are musicians playing live in front of you, whether amplified or not.

 

[kevinh]

I have heard the Big Sound Lab A1's sound real, on well recortded acoustic tracks, Liek the Grisman, Rice recordings Tone poems.

 

[F1308]

For me, it turns out to be exactly the opposite question.

As I said in another post...

Nevertheless I have so far not being able to attend a live concert in the open air that matches or betters the sound I get from the equipment at my home or even the one coming from my headsets. At times a simple mild blowing wind makes a clear difference between right and left channels; very often the volume is so loud the only thing I hear is distortion, committing me to walking away till volume is bearable and then hearing other noises from the world around...

Even small playing groups refrain from playing without electronic amplification, destroying the outstanding natural sound of their instruments....

It goes without saying that most concerts are played through loudspeakers...Sometimes even at the opera.

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

I was once on stage with an international opera star rehearsing in a small (c. 200 seat) auditorium and it was…uncomfortable is the best way I can describe it. I could feel the pressure in my ears. In my listening room I can’t imagine what it would be like. Intolerable probably. I would not want to have speakers that would re-create the sound like he was really there in my room.

Edit: the quality was glorious, just so loud! I am happy to listen to his recordings.

I know how you feel.
When my teacher plays forte and up on her piano in the music school, I usually cover my ears because it pains me.

And that's just a baby grand, I don't want to imagine standing next to one of the big boys or sitting in an Orchestra w/o hearing protection.

 

[MattHooper]

Out of curiosity, has anyone heard or know of speakers that can output sound that is basically indistinguishable from a live performance if you say walked into the room blindfolded and were asked to decide the sound was coming from speakers or from a live performer?

There's an interesting review of the Hedd Tower Mains where they guy says a piano track was playing and he thought someone was actually playing the piano in the room. Sometimes my Type 20s give me a similar impression on vocals.

Does anyone know of such a speaker?

Depends on what sound you are trying to reproduce of course. A single voice or instrument being easier.

Also, the illusion of live, the chance of being fooled, is harder to achieve in sitting in front of a pair of stereo speakers in the sweat spot. But you have a better chance with the "does it sound live from outside the room?" test. That way you aren't quite directly dealing with some of the failures of stereo sound to truly capture or reproduce the sound of real instruments - e.g. the phasy quality of the imaging - and the sound is aided by being bound up in the acoustics of the room.

I just posted on another thread something I've mentioned before: When I owned the MBL omni speakers they produced some of the most realistic sound I've heard from a speaker. I have recordings of my family's voices, instruments we play etc that I use to test speakers. When I would play something like the recording of my son practicing saxophone on the speakers, from just outside the room it truly did sound like a live instrument was being played in that room and I did indeed fool a few people in to thinking my son was in the room practicing. So, yeah, it can be done.

Also, there have been a few times of exceedingly believable sound even when sitting in my room listening. I can think of a particularly naturalistic recording of some voices recorded on a small stage. When played through my previous Thiel 3.7 speakers with my eyes closed I wasn't fooled it was live as I knew of course it wasn't. But I actually struggled to discern how the sound was different than if I were at the stage listening to the singers. It was spooky and seemed to require virtually no effort of imagination.