Is the only true reference in audio to compare your system to the original mastering system?

[GXAlan]

Sure, not all of them are beaming equally narrow, but putting electrostats in the "expansive and diffuse" cathegory simply sounds wrong. (Pun intended)



I am a fan of modern MLs, I like the magic they make at the sweet spot.

Fair enough. I was thinking primarily about the line source volume decay at 1/r instead of 1/r^2.

 

[Archsam]

This video just came out in time to add to this discussion. I really enjoy Hans Beekhuyzen's Channel:

 

[MRC01]

I enjoyed that. He says a few things many here at ASR will dispute, like equally well engineered amps sound different, and assuming a monotonic (though not linear) cost/performance curve. Yet notwithstanding that, he expressed some valuable wisdom about audio, music, perception and expectations.

 

[Archsam]

I enjoyed that. He says a few things many here at ASR will dispute, like equally well engineered amps sound different, and assuming a monotonic (though not linear) cost/performance curve. Yet notwithstanding that, he expressed some valuable wisdom about audio, music, perception and expectations.

Most of Han's video reviews are quite informative, he goes to great lengths to talk about the technical aspect of the component he is reviewing, and his subjective opinions tends to be short and even handed. I actually learned a lot from his videos, including his review on the Matrix Element X that graphically described the differences between filters - it was through that video that i finally begin to understand what a DAC filter does to the sound, despite me trying to read up on all the frequency charts on the roll off characteristics and still not 'getting it'.

 

[Feanor]

Yes, this is the point, the only reference was the original recording, not even the original live event. And yet, to say you accurately reproduced the original intent as laid down on the recording requires you to basically have the same setup as the mastering engineer did, and arguably the same hearing response as he has!

Are the implications of this that there is no reference possible for the consumer when reproducing a recording? This is the area I am trying to explore here. If you had the same amplification chain as the mastering engineer, and say he used headphones, then could you say that you are actually playing that particular recording at reference level if you used the same headphones, is that about as close as you could get?

Correct! You would need the mastering engineer's ears to know what s/he had in mind -- the consumer can never have that. What you can hope for (as a consumer) is a rig that will reproduce the recording as accurately as possible.

Time and time again I hear audiophiles say that they want equipment that recreates the "sound of the live event". A couple of problems come to mind for me:

• "Live events" don't all sound the same. The sound depends on the venue in the first place. Then on your seat in the venue and myriad other factors.
• The recollection of the sound of a live event is as much imagination as accurate memory. Lots of audiophiles strive for the "live event" sound at the expense of the sound as recorded, e.g. making it sound "warmer" that it actually is -- why do you think tube equipment is so popular with that crowd?

The fact is for given a rig any much better than a boombox the sound is 90% dependent of the recording itself, not the reproduction chain. If your objectively accurate music rig isn't giving you "live sound", find a better recording.

 

[Jimbob54]

So. Its clearly an imponderable. But

The goal of the reference playback system should be to reproduce as closely as possible what was committed to the master as heard in the mastering studio.

The goal of the whole recording and playback process should be to get the listener as close to what the artist wanted them to hear.

 

[MRC01]

With classical music, the recording quality is consistently better than rock/pop; they use a MUCH lighter hand with compressing, equalizing and other post-processing. However, even so, not only do the recordings all sound quite different, but also there is some consistency to those differences. That is, different recording labels tend to have a "house sound". Some are better, more realistic, more enjoyable than others. Exactly which depends on one's musical taste, experience, and audio system.

The point is: audiophiles split hairs over differences that are so subtle, half the argument is whether those differences actually exist at all or whether they are audible. Yet the recordings are orders of magnitude more different sounding. It would seem more rational to obsess over certain recordings (or recording labels) than the equipment used to play it back.

PS: back to the OP, this makes it very difficult to gauge "fidelity" in the sense of "fidelity to the sound of the master recording". Every recording sounds different. We can only imagine what the mic feed and the master recording sounded like. For those that sound realistic, we can't know exactly to what extent this is because we have a truly transparent "high fidelity" system, or because flaws in the recording had a lucky synergy with opposing flaws in our playback system. However, I believe one clue that an audio system is truly high fidelity and transparent, is the degree of difference it reveals in different recordings.

 

[Feanor]

With classical music, the recording quality is consistently better than rock/pop; they use a MUCH lighter hand with compressing, equalizing and other post-processing. However, even so, not only do the recordings all sound quite different, but also there is some consistency to those differences. That is, different recording labels tend to have a "house sound". Some are better, more realistic, more enjoyable than others. Exactly which depends on one's musical taste, experience, and audio system.

The point is: audiophiles split hairs over differences that are so subtle, half the argument is whether those differences actually exist at all or whether they are audible. Yet the recordings are orders of magnitude more different sounding. It would seem more rational to obsess over certain recordings (or recording labels) than the equipment used to play it back.
...

I totally agree with what you say about classical music, (which is 95% of what I listen to).

There are certainly different approaches, probably in response to different tastes, as to what a recording should sound like. E.g. in case of chamber music, some mastering engineers prefer the perspective of a musician amongst the ensemble, while others prefer a fifth row audience perspective -- personally I prefer the latter, (maybe because I'm not a performer myself).

I have argued repeatedly on audiophile forums that the recording is far more important to the sound than any aspect of a half-decent reproduction chain. Occasionally someone agrees, mostly I'm ignored.

Also, from audiophiles you get blanket statement such as, "All solid state amplifiers make string sound artificial and bad, only tubes can do strings well". I say that that isn't so in case of better recordings but again, I'm usually ignored. (I suspect tubes "sugar coat" the sound with 2nd or 3rd order harmonics.)

 

[Alexanderc]

I totally agree with what you say about classical music, (which is 95% of what I listen to).

There are certainly different approaches, probably in response to different tastes, as to what a recording should sound like. E.g. in case of chamber music, some mastering engineers prefer the perspective of a musician amongst the ensemble, while others prefer a fifth row audience perspective -- personally I prefer the latter, (maybe because I'm not a performer myself).

I am a performer, and I greatly prefer the audience perspective as well. FWIW.

 

[MattHooper]

What happens if the mastering engineer comes round and prefers the sound at your house .., is your house the new reference.

As I've mentioned before, I've had something close to that happen. Several of my musician friends have liked to bring their mastering sessions to my place and listen on my system. They often don't own hi-fi systems that they deem as good as mine, and otherwise have listened either in their own studio or, in the case of mastering, at the mastering studio. So for instance one will work with the matering engineer tweaking out a couple different masters, then bring them to my place and we'll go over them. More than once I've been told they like how their tracks have sounded best when listening at my place (while sounding a bit more "revealing" to their perception). Not exactly sure what inference to draw from that, but...kind of interesting.

 

[MRC01]

... Also, from audiophiles you get blanket statement such as, "All solid state amplifiers make string sound artificial and bad, only tubes can do strings well". ...

I find that strings are easy to reproduce and forgiving, in that they sound good even on average recordings & playback systems. It takes a really bad system to make strings sound bad. Piano is the opposite, highly revealing of imperfections in the recording or playback.

As for perspective, I prefer audience over on-stage, as long as it's close. The on-stage sound is a bit too bright and zingy. The medium to far distant audience loses too much low level resolution. I find the perspective from the first few rows is ideal.

 

[MattHooper]

Time and time again I hear audiophiles say that they want equipment that recreates the "sound of the live event". A couple of problems come to mind for me:

• "Live events" don't all sound the same. The sound depends on the venue in the first place. Then on your seat in the venue and myriad other factors.
• The recollection of the sound of a live event is as much imagination as accurate memory. Lots of audiophiles strive for the "live event" sound at the expense of the sound as recorded, e.g. making it sound "warmer" that it actually is -- why do you think tube equipment is so popular with that crowd?

The fact is for given a rig any much better than a boombox the sound is 90% dependent of the recording itself, not the reproduction chain. If your objectively accurate music rig isn't giving you "live sound", find a better recording.

I don't really know of any audiophiles who think reproducing the live event at home is possible. Even Harry Pearson who spearheaded the Absolute Sound as reference made much of how even the best systems he'd heard departed from the real thing.

For those who use live sound as their reference, it's mostly used as a sort of North Star - you are guided by it, but never expect to reach it. And that's ok.

I'm sort of in the live reference camp. I've been fascinated with live vs reproduced sound for as long as I can remember, and habitually compare hi-f to live unamplified sound. When it comes to most unamplified acoustic instruments and voices, I never fail to be bowled over by the quality of the "real live" versions - the absolute effortless combination of clarity, relaxed detail, richness and complexity of timbre, acoustic presence, dynamics both tiny and large...just everything. Give me a set of acoustic guitar pieces on CD and I may be bored to death if I don't happen to love the music. But place an acoustic guitar of decent quality being played in front of me and practically any damned thing the person is playing entrances me. There is, for me, just that level of sound quality and richness that enhances the experience and makes me more engaged.

For me, I take notice of aspects of live sound - a sax in a club or played by a street musician or by my son (I used to play too), my acoustic guitar, drums, whatever - and I seek in reproduced sound not perfect realism, but at least certain aspects or qualities that remind me of the real thing.
If it gets those aspects right, I can sink in to the sound in a way more similar to being in presence of the real thing. Like watching movie. It's two dimensional and fake if directly compared to real life, but if in the case of a naturalistic drama, the acting/script is more realistic, more like how real people are, those aspects can "let me believe" and the obvious departures from real life inherent in watching a movie don't intrude.

So I never expect a drum set to sound like a live drumset. The power and volume level of a drumset in my smaller listening room would be insane.
But I want some familiar aspects to the sound - having played in bands, played drums, and listened to countless live drum sets, there are aspects I recognize, the papery "pop" of a snare quality - that signal in my mind "yeah, that's right. That's a snare." That kind of thing.

And I do agree with your last comment about "tube guys" to some extent. I use tube amps because, at least as I percieve it, it introduces an important aspect that I love about live sound: the warmth, which is one of the first things I notice is missing about reproduced sound. (I'm talking subtle coloration btw). But, that's satisfying my perception, and I understand others may not zone in on the same things I do.

I find that strings are easy to reproduce and forgiving, in that they sound good even on average recordings & playback systems. It takes a really bad system to make strings sound bad.

Interesting. To me it's the opposite: reproduced strings are the hardest things to sound "right."

If we aren't talking about a live reference, then strings are "easy" because it's easy for them to sound good, to do the things they are supposed to in a track. But compared to the real thing, strings seem the hardest to get right because their nature sets them up to sound weird or artificial with the slightest bit of distortion. When I first got digital keyboards that used digital samples (80's onward) it was always, to my ear, the strings that sounded most artificial. And to me, most string sections on hi-fi systems have reminded me of those "sampled strings" in a keyboard. Real strings - even a single string instrument like a violin - sound really BIG in real life. A string section hitting a single high note, still has size and presence and a texture that is once course, detailed yet "relaxed" and organic. But a string section playing a single note together recorded and played back on most hi-fi sounds to me like it's suddenly diminished to a single, small instrument, and denuded still in texture, richness, scale.
It sounds toy-like and thin and electronic compared to real strings.

So, for me, when I hear strings reproduced in a way that actually reminds me of the real thing, that's a golden moment.

 

[jsrtheta]

I used to divide my jazz CDs between "heroin" on the left and "weed" on the right.

I used to do the same, except it was "acid" on the left.

 

[RayDunzl]

For playback I'd say there is no reference beyond the recording rhat you are playing back.

That seems rather obvious to me.

Does the "live" exist as a reference? No, it was ephemeral.

Does what the engineer "heard" serve as a reference? No.

Does the master recording serve as a reference? Not if it isn't what you received.

Does the recording you have in your hand serve as a reference for your playback? I think so.

---

I have compared the in-room RTA to the recording RTA in the past, since I think that the reference is the recording I'm playing back.

Sometimes it gets pretty close, after some work on the "room correction" part.

---

In-room RTA, and left and right channel RTA of the recording being played:

You have to mentally sum the left and right to get the in-room, since, at the time this was done, I didn't have a way to compare the mono mic signal to a combined channels signal.

 

[tuga]

3) Expansive and Diffuse
- dinner/cocktail party, tea reception where listeners will be dispersed randomly throughout a room
- a live string quartet or jazz band typically will energize the room broadly
- omnipolar MBL, dipoles like Steinway Lyngdorf, Magnepan, Martin Logan electrostat hybirds, Canon wide-imaging-stereo, JBL Paragon
- some people claim that cheap Sonos or Amazon speaker will do, but that's not necessarily true.
https://www.technologydesigner.com/2019/09/05/entertaining-with-sound/

If the recording has captured the acoustic ambiance of the original venue then overlaying it with the playback/listening room's will result in a lessening not an increase of realism.
On the other hand, playback/listening room interference may enhance the listening experience of studio recordings which are generally close-mic'ed and are not aiming to document a live performance.

 

[Snarfie]

Instead of The mastering system are we not referring more to the master tape?.

For me personal i like to hear the original recoding as close as possible. For that the original recording thats ends up on the master tape is my true reference. But from their on the problems arise at home. The master tape is produced in a control room (at-least in the past) mostly i guess so you have to know how the acoustic environment was at the time was their a flat frequency response so was the room threated. In most quality studio that is the case however did the artist an recoding engineer are making use of a preferd target curve besides that did they separate EQ'ed some instruments voices etc etc. So i have to make a choice. Because i listen mostly to old (around 70%) an new classical, jazz an pop music i have chosen for a flat frequency response to come close to the original master tape. I think at the time those quality studio's where acoustically more or less threated an those recordings/master tapes did not use target curves maby some EQ.

After many years comparing amp's speakers DAC's i think i have found my personal solution by making use of room correction software an making use of speakers that are more or less designed for staging/imaging (time alignment phase coherent speakers by design).

If i am listening now to some older Beatles or Hollies tracks you hear much better the Abbey Road acoustics/reverberation character of lets say studio 2 where both bands recorded lots of albums despite both bands made their choices regarding their specific sound/eq . IMO by making use of such speakers an software the music sound more intimate sound more like a band an come close to the original recording/reference. If that is your aim.

 

[dasdoing]

I find it funny that for DPS correction people here prefer a falling house curve, when the goal in the mixing/mastering environment is a flat curve.
That falling house curve is what naturaly occures with a theoraticly perfactly neutral speaker in a an untreated room, ok....but it is not what the engenier hears when balancing the master. So a reference speaker for home setups should be bass frequency attenuated.

when I tried out house curves I used recordings of natural sounds (and classical music) as reference and other then flat doesn't sound natural most of the times

 

[Snarfie]

I find it funny that for DPS correction people here prefer a falling house curve, when the goal in the mixing/mastering environment is a flat curve.
That falling house curve is what naturaly occures with a theoraticly perfactly neutral speaker in a an untreated room, ok....but it is not what the engenier hears when balancing the master. So a reference speaker for home setups should be bass frequency attenuated.

when I tried out house curves I used recordings of natural sounds (and classical music) as reference and other then flat doesn't sound natural most of the times

I did also uses some house curves for some recordings like Al Stewart - Year of the Cat i like to use a Harman curve 2DB it is enough to uplift the lows a bit more. But for basically 95% of all my music i choose a dead flat curve because it sound way more balanced. As an example Frank Sinatra - Live at the Sands the timbre of his voice is so delicate that basically any house curve like Harman or Brüel & Kjær leave out 40% of this delicate sound. But that is all based on my current acoustics can't speak for any other room acoustic.

 

[Feanor]

I find it funny that for DPS correction people here prefer a falling house curve, when the goal in the mixing/mastering environment is a flat curve.
That falling house curve is what naturaly occures with a theoraticly perfactly neutral speaker in a an untreated room, ok....but it is not what the engenier hears when balancing the master. So a reference speaker for home setups should be bass frequency attenuated.

when I tried out house curves I used recordings of natural sounds (and classical music) as reference and other then flat doesn't sound natural most of the times

I think I agree. I tried the "falling house curve" (with classical music) and didn't like it at all.

Presently I'm trying a slight bass boost below about 150 Hz with a bit of roll off above 5 Hz. Other than that, I roll off a bit above 5000 Hz but otherwise stick to flat.
,
Flat, that is, correcting only for:

• Irregularities in my speakers inherent response as measured in the near-field, (quasi-anechoic), and
• Bass resonances measured from the listening position.

This is related, according to my understanding, to the "Schroeder frequency", meaning the point in the frequency range where response peaks & valley cross over from being mainly resonances to mainly echoes;. Resonance effects are in the bass frequencies, echos on upward.

I tend to believe that theory that you get the most transparency and air when you rely on direct sound as opposed to echoes. Which is to say that it isn't the best Idea correct for overall response at the listening position.

 

[MRC01]

I think I agree. I tried the "falling house curve" (with classical music) and didn't like it at all.
Presently I'm trying a slight bass boost below about 150 Hz with a bit of roll off above 5 Hz. Other than that, I roll off a bit above 5000 Hz but otherwise stick to flat. ...

I find about smooth linear -1 dB / octave sounds best in my room. That's a total drop of 9-10 dB from 30 Hz to 20 kHz. This is not a slope that I create, but happens to be how the speakers naturally measure without any correction. I apply correction only to smooth the larger bumps and dips. I've tried making it dead flat and that sounds too thin.

Incidentally, when I record live acoustic music myself, I do it without any processing like EQ or dynamic compression. When I play them back on my system I find them to be a faithful representation of the live event that I heard from the mic position. Of course, one can tell it's a recording, but its voicing and tonal balance don't sound "off" in any obvious way.