Hi Fi Sounds Fake - Pick the Fake You Prefer

[watchnerd]

 

[BillG]

I can't say that I really agree with him. I've heard some of my favorite bands in concert, and a well done recording of the same songs, played in a room with good acoustics, always sounds better to me...

 

[Blumlein 88]

Okay, I've listened to a third of it. Is HiFi a luxury? Yeah. It isn't food, it isn't shelter it isn't essential. Not sure. A friend has said it well. If it weren't for music, good music on good hifi, I think I'd need drugs to get thru some days. So maybe for Zero Fidelity it is a take it or leave it. I'm not quite as crazy fanatical as I once was. But it is pretty important to me. We can choose some things to be important beyond the norm. This is one for me.

I also have heard two instances that were flat dead fool you into thinking it was real situations with reproduced sound. They were situations I could revisit several times and they were consistent. And one of those was a piano recording. There are a handful more that made me stop and have to listen carefully to decide. Now if I describe the two instances they aren't terribly educational about why they were. It wasn't some superb fidelity.

 

[georgeT]

He also believes in the magic of expensive cables, so...

 

[restorer-john]

Okay, I've listened to a third of it. Is HiFi a luxury? Yeah. It isn't food, it isn't shelter it isn't essential. Not sure. A friend has said it well. If it weren't for music, good music on good hifi, I think I'd need drugs to get thru some days. So maybe for Zero Fidelity it is a take it or leave it. I'm not quite as crazy fanatical as I once was. But it is pretty important to me. We can choose some things to be important beyond the norm. This is one for me.

I also have heard two instances that were flat dead fool you into thinking it was real situations with reproduced sound. They were situations I could revisit several times and they were consistent. And one of those was a piano recording. There are a handful more that made me stop and have to listen carefully to decide. Now if I describe the two instances they aren't terribly educational about why they were. It wasn't some superb fidelity.

Nicely put.

 

[watchnerd]

I can't say that I really agree with him. I've heard some of my favorite bands in concert, and a well done recording of the same songs, played in a room with good acoustics, always sounds better to me...

Better than the live event?

Sounds like a flavor of "fake"...

 

[BillG]

Better than the live event?

Sounds like a flavor of "fake"...

Yes, better than the live event. Now whether that's due to the performer(s) having an off night, the acoustics of the venue, the gear being used, or just the sound engineer(s) slacking off, I can't say...

What is fake in this instance? That I'm not using the exact same equipment that the mixing and mastering engineers use? Okay! Tell me what speakers and amplification they're using and I'll go buy them. Would that make you happy?

 

[restorer-john]

Better than the live event?

Absolutely can happen. I've had some superb recordings of some Jazz performances that were much better sounding at home than they were in the ballroom on the night. The atmosphere doesn't translate of course, but the memories of the event serve to actually enhance the already better sound and the overall enjoyment can be greater.

Not all of course work that way.

 

[Zog]

Watched the rest. The guy is a bozo trying to make click bait videos with very little to contribute worth hearing about.

I don't have a problem with it. We are not his audience. I only got to about 3 minutes.

 

[Fluffy]

Better than the live event?

Sounds like a flavor of "fake"...

Why not really? Think of it like this – a record is not merely a capture of a single live performance, it's a tediously recorded and edited performance made to capture the most perfect and ideal version of that specific music. Musicians play multiple takes in the studio and the mixer sometimes splices together parts of different takes to achieve the one perfect take that will forever be the reference version of that particular song. And they are also recorded in the most ideal conditions with the most fitting acoustics and the best microphones for the job.

There are some genres of music, mostly ones that aren't very improvisational by nature, that I completely stopped going to live shows for. The album version just always sounds better, so what's the point.

 

[peanuts]

clearly he has not listened to a proper dipole like the lx521. they completely disappear

 

[watchnerd]

Yes, better than the live event. Now whether that's due to the performer(s) having an off night, the acoustics of the venue, the gear being used, or just the sound engineer(s) slacking off, I can't say...

What is fake in this instance? That I'm not using the exact same equipment that the mixing and mastering engineers use? Okay! Tell me what speakers and amplification they're using and I'll go buy them. Would that make you happy?

The point being almost all recording is an act of artifice and fakery....and yes, some of it may suit your preferences / sound better.

Nothing wrong with that.

 

[watchnerd]

Absolutely can happen. I've had some superb recordings of some Jazz performances that were much better sounding at home than they were in the ballroom on the night. The atmosphere doesn't translate of course, but the memories of the event serve to actually enhance the already better sound and the overall enjoyment can be greater.

Not all of course work that way.

My question was a rhetorical one:

Yes, of course, a good recording can sound as good or better in the home than a live event.

But that just reinforces the idea that "the absolute sound", the idea of reproducing live music in the home as the reference standard, is a pretty bogus goal for all the reasons listed above.

I think that's the meta point -- that all home audio is severely flawed, and that most debates are people arguing for or against preferences.

 

[watchnerd]

clearly he has not listened to a proper dipole like the lx521. they completely disappear

Those little Bose cubes can disappear, too.

 

[raif71]

 

[House de Kris]

I watched the whole thing, against my better judgement. According to his beliefs, I'm not passionate about music. For a person passionate about music can listen on laptop speakers. And here I thought I was so passionate about music that I would not molest it by forcing it through those unlistenable speakers. At any rate, while watching the video, all I could think of is "of course it sounds fake if you're listening to music through those dinky 'high-end audio' speakers behind you." Which he later acknowledged.

In my opinion, pointing a finger at the gear as a source of this fakery is misdirected. I spent all day Tuesday working on a recording I made of a bluegrass band I made on Saturday. The raw recording straight off the board sounded hauntingly like the sound I'd mixed at the festival, even on home speakers. But, the live feed isn't all that compatible with home hifi, so after hours of massaging, I ended up with something easier to listen to, but definitely more fake.

Same effect years ago with some live electronic music I recorded in my studio. Played back in the studio, it was just like the live sound. But playing that recording in a moving car was impossible. Turn it up loud enough to hear, and the drums totally distorted by way overloading the amps. I has to squash the drum peaks by 10dB to bring them in line with the rest of the music. This resulted in losing a lot of the dynamic excitement inherent in music, but did make it accessible for most listening environments.

Thus, my take is that, mastering is to blame for the majority of the fakery we live with in the realm of enjoying music at home. Highly processed music, which is a majority of what we buy, contains little of the elements that make it sound like a live event. Then there's the matter of these "high-end audiophiles" using dinky little speakers and expecting it to sound real.

 

[KozmoNaut]

According to his beliefs, I'm not passionate about music. For a person passionate about music can listen on laptop speakers. And here I thought I was so passionate about music that I would not molest it by forcing it through those unlistenable speakers.

As much as he's rambling in that video, he's got a point there. I think you should be able to listen to and enjoy the music you really like on just about everything that isn't completely horrendous.

Stock 90s Corolla car stereo? Bluetooth speaker on the floor of the laundry room? DeWalt builder's radio? The sound system at a dive bar? Whatever random second/third/fourth-hand PA gear the people holding a big garden party managed to scrounge together? A pair of LSR305s cranked up all the way in an attempt to fill a courtyard with sound? The cranked sound system in a party bus? Inexpensive earphones that came with my phone? The tinny little built-in phone speaker? It's all good, honestly.

As long as it doesn't distort too much and doesn't leave huge gaping blatant holes in the frequency response, I'm good.

Sure, I enjoy the music a lot more on a really good system or with really good headphones, but that's extra. It's a nice bonus to the enjoyment I'm already getting from listening to my favorite music

Honestly, if you can't listen to your favorite music unless the system is absolutely top notch, maybe you don't really like that music after all.

 

[watchnerd]

Honestly, if you can't listen to your favorite music unless the system is absolutely top notch, maybe you don't really like that music after all.

A perfect example of this are some exquisitely recorded audiophile tracks I have that I only listen to when'demoing' and never listen to for pleasure because they don't move me / make my feet tap.

 

[watchnerd]

In my opinion, pointing a finger at the gear as a source of this fakery is misdirected. I spent all day Tuesday working on a recording I made of a bluegrass band I made on Saturday. The raw recording straight off the board sounded hauntingly like the sound I'd mixed at the festival, even on home speakers. But, the live feed isn't all that compatible with home hifi, so after hours of massaging, I ended up with something easier to listen to, but definitely more fake.

I didn't interpret the video as pointing out the gear as the only source of fakery, just that the whole endeavor of what is done to recording to make it listenable at home (as you also point out) is full of compromises to begin with.

It's all flawed and compromised, so arguing about which qualities are most important to optimize for can become just an argument about preferences.

Arguing that the dynamic capabilities of high efficiency horns makes them superior to a crossover-less single-driver ESL is ultimately not much more rational than arguing that Mexican food is superior to Chinese food.

 

[scott wurcer]

A perfect example of this are some exquisitely recorded audiophile tracks I have that I only listen to when'demoing' and never listen to for pleasure because they don't move me / make my feet tap.

No Sheffield Labs has ever got the toes tapping?