Live vs Reproduced Sound - your thoughts?

[MattHooper]

This subject has occurred in bits and pieces on threads over the years, but I wanted to throw the question out on a dedicated thread:

What are your views on live versus reproduce sound? Can reproduce sound ever seem truly live? If so, how and if not, why not? And do you care at all about any semblance of sonic realism?

I’m interested both in personal impressions - what do you notice most about the difference between live versus reproduced sound?

As well as any technical discussion on the subject.

I understand that lots of people here don’t even seek sonic realism and don’t think it’s generally possible. But I’m interested in those reasons as well.

I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between live versus reproduce sound. I did my own informal live versus reproduced, listening tests, many years ago with various speakers in my room.

But I couldn’t achieve anything scientific. It still felt somewhat illuminating though (when some recordings of an instrument, her voice were compared directly to their live counterpart in the same room, some loudspeakers more than others struck me as sounded closer to the real thing).

Early on in the 90s I had a chance to listen to the big, reference Genesis1 loudspeakers (at lyric hi-fi in New York as I remember).

I was able to sit down all by my lonesome in the big room with these huge beasts and play all sorts of my CDs.

I’ll never forget the impression they made on me with a number of orchestral pieces. I had never experienced high-end speakers producing that combination of realistic scale and imaging, detail and impact.

With my eyes closed the sensation of peering into a life-sized orchestra was more vivid than I had ever experienced. (I was attending live Orchestra performances regularly at that time).

And yet hearing sound reproduction so much closer to the real thing in terms of scale and detail made what was missing jump right out to me: timbral realism. It was missing the colour of the real thing.

I would liken it to experiencing a huge Ansel Adams black and white photograph of an Orchestra. It was so finally detailed I could scan the orchestra for every instrument. But like the black-and-white photograph, it was missing the rich sense of timbral colours I was used to hearing when I would close my eyes and listen at a live symphony.

Another way of putting it: it was like every instrument in the symphony had been replaced by a plastic replica, so even though I could identify each instrument there was this bland, homogenized “ everything is sort of made out of the same plastic material” timbral impression.

I left wondering if this revealed a sort of line in the sand for reproduce the sound. How can a system with a very small number of transducers recreate a sound field that originally involved hundreds of vibrating sources?“Maybe it’s just too much to ask a handful of speaker drivers to reproduce the true range of timbre one hears from real symphonies or real sounds? If the sound is coming from just a few driver materials, then maybe that’s why there is a certain sameness to the sound.”

That made a bit of intuitive sense.

But then it seemed to break down because I realized that, of course our eardrum acts essentially like a speaker driver in reverse; it receives the sum of all the sound pressure waves arriving at the ear.

And somehow, from that decodes all the different instruments.

(and even though a lot of of the decoding complexities happens further down in the cochlea, it’s still a case that the eardrum sums the pressure waves before that point as I understand it).

So there isn’t in principle anything wrong with the concept of a single vibrating membrane, or several - speaker drivers of some sort - reproducing the combined waveform of a symphony or anything else. Because of course, why would we even be able to record and playback symphonies or any other instruments the way we already can.

The devil obviously is in the details in terms of how sound reproduction, from microphones to real world loudspeakers, actually fail to fully reproduce “ the real thing.” (And of course, the inherent limitations in stereo reproduction).

In any case, especially ever since that experience many years ago, I’ve always felt sensitive to the perception that recordings played through most loudspeakers sound homogenized relative to the original sounds or similar sounds in real life. And it’s been one of my guiding lights to seek out sound reproduction that… at least in my perception…sounds as “timbrally varied and surprising as possible.”

In most systems once I’ve heard a few tracks of drum symbols and drums and trumpet or sax, I think “ OK… got it…. That’s how those instruments are going to sound generally speaking through these speakers across many recordings.” There are no more surprises.

What do other people think about this? Does anybody else share my perception of recordings and/or audio systems homogenizing and reducing timbral richness and variety?

Any other ways you find reproduction sound tends to fall short?

 

[Audioagnostic]

The visceral experience of a rock concert is pretty hard to reproduce in your living room.

Live and recorded, two different things...

 

[DWPress]

My system has very large speakers capable of clean high SPL approaching concert venue levels. I love to play well mixed live albums on it and sometimes it feels like I'm approximating that concert/small venue experience but there's nobody throwing up 2 seats over or clouds of marijuana smoke billowing through...

 

[MattHooper]

My system has very large speakers capable of clean high SPL approaching concert venue levels. I love to play well mixed live albums on it and sometimes it feels like I'm approximating that concert/small venue experience but there's nobody throwing up 2 seats over or clouds of marijuana smoke billowing through...

I’m sure I’ve never had speakers in my room that can do what you describe.

But I did have a pair of speakers that sounded especially credible when playing typical amplified type music (Waveform Mach Solo speakers).

I remember playing recordings of my own band rehearsals and also live recordings, and when the sound was cranked and I was listening from a different room like the kitchen, the sensation it brought of hearing my bandmates practising in a room down the hall, felt pretty eerie. It did not have the scale and power, but there was something in the power and solidity of the sound nonetheless that created this “ that’s what our rehearsals sound like” impression that no other loudspeaker has reproduced.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Your post reminded me of a comment of a HiFi reviewer, he was mentioning that as he visited a HiFi show, he heard the sound of a piano playing, he could not believe how realistic the piano sounded and was amazed that a sound system could be that realistic and accurate, when the entered the room he realized that it was a piano playing.
We can have hours of pleasure listening to music in our home, but we have to forget about the sound to be mistaken with the real thing, even as simple as a folk singer with a guitar, so rock concert or full symphonie orchestra, let’s be serious.
Having a system that communicate the rhythm and excitement of real music is what I get in my best system, the joy and emotion is what makes a great sound system to me.
But I never ever think for a second I am really there, where ever that would be. I don’t need to. My feet taping, my hands clapping and singing along is what I am after and why “HiFi” makes any sense to me. Everything else is background noise.

 

[Hapo]

...I have known conceited musicians who distain recorded music, but it is pretty much all I have access to...

...if you stack enough cheap speakers, you can find some joy...

 

[Petrushka]

I’ve seen several productions at the Met, and I know they have amplified sound, but I cannot detect it.

 

[garyrc]

This subject has occurred in bits and pieces on threads over the years, but I wanted to throw the question out on a dedicated thread:

What are your views on live versus reproduce sound? Can reproduce sound ever seem truly live? If so, how and if not, why not? And do you care at all about any semblance of sonic realism?

I’m interested both in personal impressions - what do you notice most about the difference between live versus reproduced sound?

As well as any technical discussion on the subject.

I understand that lots of people here don’t even seek sonic realism and don’t think it’s generally possible. But I’m interested in those reasons as well.

I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between live versus reproduce sound. I did my own informal live versus reproduced, listening tests, many years ago with various speakers in my room.

But I couldn’t achieve anything scientific. It still felt somewhat illuminating though (when some recordings of an instrument, her voice were compared directly to their live counterpart in the same room, some loudspeakers more than others struck me as sounded closer to the real thing).

Early on in the 90s I had a chance to listen to the big, reference Genesis1 loudspeakers (at lyric hi-fi in New York as I remember).

I was able to sit down all by my lonesome in the big room with these huge beasts and play all sorts of my CDs.

I’ll never forget the impression they made on me with a number of orchestral pieces. I had never experienced high-end speakers producing that combination of realistic scale and imaging, detail and impact.

With my eyes closed the sensation of peering into a life-sized orchestra was more vivid than I had ever experienced. (I was attending live Orchestra performances regularly at that time).

And yet hearing sound reproduction so much closer to the real thing in terms of scale and detail made what was missing jump right out to me: timbral realism. It was missing the colour of the real thing.

I would liken it to experiencing a huge Ansel Adams black and white photograph of an Orchestra. It was so finally detailed I could scan the orchestra for every instrument. But like the black-and-white photograph, it was missing the rich sense of timbral colours I was used to hearing when I would close my eyes and listen at a live symphony.

Another way of putting it: it was like every instrument in the symphony had been replaced by a plastic replica, so even though I could identify each instrument there was this bland, homogenized “ everything is sort of made out of the same plastic material” timbral impression.

I left wondering if this revealed a sort of line in the sand for reproduce the sound. How can a system with a very small number of transducers recreate a sound field that originally involved hundreds of vibrating sources?“Maybe it’s just too much to ask a handful of speaker drivers to reproduce the true range of timbre one hears from real symphonies or real sounds? If the sound is coming from just a few driver materials, then maybe that’s why there is a certain sameness to the sound.”

That made a bit of intuitive sense.

But then it seemed to break down because I realized that, of course our eardrum acts essentially like a speaker driver in reverse; it receives the sum of all the sound pressure waves arriving at the ear.

And somehow, from that decodes all the different instruments.

(and even though a lot of of the decoding complexities happens further down in the cochlea, it’s still a case that the eardrum sums the pressure waves before that point as I understand it).

So there isn’t in principle anything wrong with the concept of a single vibrating membrane, or several - speaker drivers of some sort - reproducing the combined waveform of a symphony or anything else. Because of course, why would we even be able to record and playback symphonies or any other instruments the way we already can.

The devil obviously is in the details in terms of how sound reproduction, from microphones to real world loudspeakers, actually fail to fully reproduce “ the real thing.” (And of course, the inherent limitations in stereo reproduction).

In any case, especially ever since that experience many years ago, I’ve always felt sensitive to the perception that recordings played through most loudspeakers sound homogenized relative to the original sounds or similar sounds in real life. And it’s been one of my guiding lights to seek out sound reproduction that… at least in my perception…sounds as “timbrally varied and surprising as possible.”

In most systems once I’ve heard a few tracks of drum symbols and drums and trumpet or sax, I think “ OK… got it…. That’s how those instruments are going to sound generally speaking through these speakers across many recordings.” There are no more surprises.

What do other people think about this? Does anybody else share my perception of recordings and/or audio systems homogenizing and reducing timbral richness and variety?

Any other ways you find reproduction sound tends to fall short?

1) I used to play in several orchestras, then ate lunch in front of one rehearsing for quite a while. Walking across the front of the orchestra in rehearsal seems to change the "timbral richness and variety" at almost every step, about 10 rows away (only a few people in the audience).

2) Timbre and dynamics are the most difficult aspects for most people to reproduce, I think. I can do dynamics [rare instantaneous peaks of 98 dB to maybe 114 dB, and clean]. But, timbre can be a problem. That different CDs/SACDs have different amounts of this problem makes me think it has something to do with the recording/microphone placement, etc.

3) Here is something to put in your Ansel Adams file. A distant relative of mine, also named Adams, invited Ansel over to the house to play the piano (Ansel was a concert level pianist). I wasn't there, unfortunately. Anyway, I think he did Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1. He evidently knew how to play it, because he broke a hammer strap (or whatever they are called).

 

[Redacted]

Depends on the band, the music, the venue and the PA. And "band" may mean orchestra, since they are essentially cover bands in rep.

I'm now a regular attendee at out local venue which is an old Methodist chapel, but I've watched amplified bands for 55 years in anything from back rooms of pubs to football stadiums.

There are circumstances where your home rig can sound like a real band in your room, if the band is normally amplified.

Some bands DI everything through the PA, some use only individual rigs, some mic rigs, and all combinations. Some combinations are never going to sound the same on a home stereo rig, no matter the room you are in or the SPL. The sound engineer may play a big part in whether the band "sound like the record" or not.

I've been to many large-ish orchestral concerts, and acoustic instrument gigs like string quartets. Many had terrible sound. Some worked well - it's very room-acoustics dependent. Some were lightly PA'd.

Bottom line for me is I have some recorded music that plays on my home rig better than the live version and some that could not come close.

 

[SigbergAudio]

One of the main reasons it sounds different is the level of compression, which will always be much less at a live event / concert - combined with the overall SPL.

A recording has to be mixed and mastered so that it still works when played at 50-60dB in the kitchen or in the car, while at the concert they know they will be playing at 100-110dB, so they can have significantly less compression.

So most people don't have systems that can realistically and cleanly play at 100-110dB at the listening position to begin with, and then even if they do, the source is much more compressed so it will still not sound the same. The added compression will make it much more intense and harder to listen to over time than an actual concert experience.

Finally, even if you do have a system capable of high SPL, playing 110dB at a listening distance of 4 meters, is still a very different experience from listening to 110dB reproduced 40 meters from the speakers. Needless to say the energy levels are still wildly different.

 

[Tell]

If one really wants to it's probably possible to record and play something back for it to sound more or less live, but it takes lots of consideration and effort and probably depends on what you're trying to capture, yet as long as the listener see what's actually producing the sound, is aware of the room they're in or in any other way knows it's not actually live the illusion will probably disappear anyways. But "close enough" is most probably possible.

But. Do we really want to? Lets compare it to a photo, which is always a framing, composition and deliberate interpatation of reality through editing the colours and contrast, they will never be able to actually represent and document reality. We always know it's a photo because it doesn't fill our entire field of view, has no depth through the parallax of our eyes and doesn't have the dynamic range in the brigthness that our eyes can handle.
Though having that said I think that our audio system will be able to come closer to a live reality than what images can, but in the end I personally don't care for any of them be a 100% true represantation of reality. But then of course I mainly listen to electronic and/or heavily sampled music, so it's impossible for it to be any kind of live reality anyways

 

[Chris A]

...I’ve always felt sensitive to the perception that recordings played through most loudspeakers sound homogenized relative to the original sounds or similar sounds in real life. And it’s been one of my guiding lights to seek out sound reproduction that… at least in my perception…sounds as “timbrally varied and surprising as possible.”

In most systems once I’ve heard a few tracks of drum symbols and drums and trumpet or sax, I think “ OK… got it…. That’s how those instruments are going to sound generally speaking through these speakers across many recordings.” There are no more surprises.

What do other people think about this? Does anybody else share my perception of recordings and/or audio systems homogenizing and reducing timbral richness and variety?

Any other ways you find reproduction sound tends to fall short?

A recording has to be mixed and mastered so that it still works when played at 50-60dB in the kitchen or in the car, while at the concert they know they will be playing at 100-110dB, so they can have significantly less compression.

The second quote above is the problem. If you play with an upwards expander (e.g., Fabfilter Pro-Q4 or Pro-MB) using some of the best commercially available tracks (like those using an unaltered Decca tree array of microphones augmented for multichannel 5-channel recording--like some soundtracks of cinema movies--which tend to be much less compressed) and some very capable point-source loudspeakers (5-channel) in a room treated for early reflections), I've found you can get very close to the visceral attacks and decays of a real on-stage performance--like being on-stage inside the so-called "proximity distance" (that Griesinger talks about).

The problem is: virtually all commercially sold music tracks (in stereo) don't fit that bill.

So the music tracks that you used with those large line array loudspeakers would have been strongly affected by the mastering compression (and limiting, nowadays), and would have contributed quite strongly to the impression of "loss of timbral richness" you described.

You're not going to hear "realism" with compressed tracks (any amount) or less capable loudspeakers (like virtually all direct radiating cones and domes)--which don't have the clean dynamic capability to somewhat accurately reproduce all the transients of an unaltered recording.

Chris

 

[YouDontHaveEnoughBass]

theres a bunch of things to consider

imaging isn't a thing live; the sounds reverberating around the venue and you get way more summed sound (this is true for any kind of concert from an orchestra to a rave), this can be done at home by repositioning the speakers to present more of a wall of sound rather than sharp imaging

bass is much better because the place is too big for any audible frequencies to have modes; the feeling of high spl bass that goes straight through you without ringing the room cannot be reproduced at home

studio music is close micced so you get to hear 'high resolution' things like fingers brushing against strings, breath in vocals etc etc and in live performances that's not a thing

i actually find 'poorly recorded' pop music to be much truer to a live experience than 'audiophile' recordings - when was the last time you went to a concert and the singer sat next you and softly sang down your earhole?

 

[Vuki]

When I play pink noise it sounds as live as it could be.
But it would be really interesting to hear @Floyd Toole or @Sean Olive thoughts about the topic.

 

[Redacted]

I'm quite sure a lot of live bands I have seen sound fairly compressed - if for no other reason than to sound loud without breaking local decibel laws, but also there is a lot of room noise to rise above.

As an irrelevant aside, earlier this year, I went to see the excellent "Voodoo Room" play. There was a power cut in town and one phase went down. It of course was the phase that all the sound gear was on but the bar still worked. Turned out it was going to take hours to come back. So I jokingly called out "did you bring any acoustic guitars?" No. Then the sound engineer said he'd got one at home and would be 10 mins. So the guitar player finished the set on a borrowed acoustic guitar, and the drummer used a single damped drum. It was terrific! And we are talking Cream, Clapton, Hendrix and rock blues covers.

 

[SSS]

Stereo reproduction can never replicate a unique live sound. It is always a reduced illusion. Exceptions can be just one vocal voice and a guitar where the live sound distribution is not so complex. With many instruments it will not work.

 

[Ropeburn]

Stereo reproduction can never replicate a unique live sound. It is always a reduced illusion. Exceptions can be just one vocal voice and a guitar where the live sound distribution is not so complex. With many instruments it will not work.

That's even true for electronic sound. It's not so much the source signal itself - a direct recording at the concert will be perfect - but the speaker system in the venue. Goes for all amplified sound really. You'll never get the same 50,000W experience at home.

 

[pinger]

This subject has occurred in bits and pieces on threads over the years, but I wanted to throw the question out on a dedicated thread:

What are your views on live versus reproduce sound? Can reproduce sound ever seem truly live? If so, how and if not, why not? And do you care at all about any semblance of sonic realism?

I’m interested both in personal impressions - what do you notice most about the difference between live versus reproduced sound?

As well as any technical discussion on the subject.

I understand that lots of people here don’t even seek sonic realism and don’t think it’s generally possible. But I’m interested in those reasons as well.

I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between live versus reproduce sound. I did my own informal live versus reproduced, listening tests, many years ago with various speakers in my room.

But I couldn’t achieve anything scientific. It still felt somewhat illuminating though (when some recordings of an instrument, her voice were compared directly to their live counterpart in the same room, some loudspeakers more than others struck me as sounded closer to the real thing).

Early on in the 90s I had a chance to listen to the big, reference Genesis1 loudspeakers (at lyric hi-fi in New York as I remember).

I was able to sit down all by my lonesome in the big room with these huge beasts and play all sorts of my CDs.

I’ll never forget the impression they made on me with a number of orchestral pieces. I had never experienced high-end speakers producing that combination of realistic scale and imaging, detail and impact.

With my eyes closed the sensation of peering into a life-sized orchestra was more vivid than I had ever experienced. (I was attending live Orchestra performances regularly at that time).

And yet hearing sound reproduction so much closer to the real thing in terms of scale and detail made what was missing jump right out to me: timbral realism. It was missing the colour of the real thing.

I would liken it to experiencing a huge Ansel Adams black and white photograph of an Orchestra. It was so finally detailed I could scan the orchestra for every instrument. But like the black-and-white photograph, it was missing the rich sense of timbral colours I was used to hearing when I would close my eyes and listen at a live symphony.

Another way of putting it: it was like every instrument in the symphony had been replaced by a plastic replica, so even though I could identify each instrument there was this bland, homogenized “ everything is sort of made out of the same plastic material” timbral impression.

I left wondering if this revealed a sort of line in the sand for reproduce the sound. How can a system with a very small number of transducers recreate a sound field that originally involved hundreds of vibrating sources?“Maybe it’s just too much to ask a handful of speaker drivers to reproduce the true range of timbre one hears from real symphonies or real sounds? If the sound is coming from just a few driver materials, then maybe that’s why there is a certain sameness to the sound.”

That made a bit of intuitive sense.

But then it seemed to break down because I realized that, of course our eardrum acts essentially like a speaker driver in reverse; it receives the sum of all the sound pressure waves arriving at the ear.

And somehow, from that decodes all the different instruments.

(and even though a lot of of the decoding complexities happens further down in the cochlea, it’s still a case that the eardrum sums the pressure waves before that point as I understand it).

So there isn’t in principle anything wrong with the concept of a single vibrating membrane, or several - speaker drivers of some sort - reproducing the combined waveform of a symphony or anything else. Because of course, why would we even be able to record and playback symphonies or any other instruments the way we already can.

The devil obviously is in the details in terms of how sound reproduction, from microphones to real world loudspeakers, actually fail to fully reproduce “ the real thing.” (And of course, the inherent limitations in stereo reproduction).

In any case, especially ever since that experience many years ago, I’ve always felt sensitive to the perception that recordings played through most loudspeakers sound homogenized relative to the original sounds or similar sounds in real life. And it’s been one of my guiding lights to seek out sound reproduction that… at least in my perception…sounds as “timbrally varied and surprising as possible.”

In most systems once I’ve heard a few tracks of drum symbols and drums and trumpet or sax, I think “ OK… got it…. That’s how those instruments are going to sound generally speaking through these speakers across many recordings.” There are no more surprises.

What do other people think about this? Does anybody else share my perception of recordings and/or audio systems homogenizing and reducing timbral richness and variety?

Any other ways you find reproduction sound tends to fall short?

I listen to mostly solo piano music and its almost like there is a piano in the room. So for that genre i vote yes

 

[whereisbrian]

When I listen to music at home, I know perfectly well that I am not at a concert, and when I listen to music at a concert, I know perfectly well that I am not at home. That should be enough.

 

[HiMu]

But then it seemed to break down because I realized that, of course our eardrum acts essentially like a speaker driver in reverse; it receives the sum of all the sound pressure waves arriving at the ear.

And somehow, from that decodes all the different instruments.

(and even though a lot of of the decoding complexities happens further down in the cochlea, it’s still a case that the eardrum sums the pressure waves before that point as I understand it).

So there isn’t in principle anything wrong with the concept of a single vibrating membrane, or several - speaker drivers of some sort - reproducing the combined waveform of a symphony or anything else. Because of course, why would we even be able to record and playback symphonies or any other instruments the way we already can.

The devil obviously is in the details in terms of how sound reproduction, from microphones to real world loudspeakers, actually fail to fully reproduce “ the real thing.” (And of course, the inherent limitations in stereo reproduction).

A speaker radiates sound in a certain way, as does the individual instruments, so to mimic an instrument as truthfully as possible, the recording has to capture the key elements and directions of radiation of an instrument and the speaker has to radiate the recorded sound in a similar way. A basic 3+ way speaker will (probably) never be able to do that due to how it couples to the room acoustically.

I'm almost sure these have been posted on the forum before.
Speakers Don't Sound Real, Lets Build One That Does

How Real Do the Drums Sound?

I hope these widen the horizon on how to approach the problem.