Live vs Reproduced Sound - your thoughts?

[Redacted]

We should separate this this thread into acoustically-delivered music and that which comes to you via amps a speakers in any room!
My wife objected to me replicating Rammstein's rig in the house (and the 50 feet above it) for some boring reason.....

 

[gzost]

The most glorious sound I have ever experienced was the Vienna Philharmonic in the Große Konzertsaal in Salzburg, row 7 near the center, during COVID when there were almost no coughers in the audience. No playback system I have has come even remotely close to that. Unfortunately the performance, Mahler 3, conducted by Andris Nelsons, sucked badly.

Conversely, the best live performance of the piece that I have heard was in my local multi-purpose concert hall where the best seats have somewhat acceptable sound and where the orchestra could only just about keep up with the demands of the music. Since this was during a time without masks I also had to deal with being taken out of the moment by coughers way too often, as well as by a couple frequently discussing something in the row in front of me.

I am no longer able to attend concerts due to chronic illness, and I sometimes miss the ritual, the anticipation and the occasions when the stars aligned and it was all worth it for the musical experience. Most of the time I am fine with being able to listen to great performances of pretty much the entire repertoire in playback quality that, while it does not replicate being in a concert hall, allows me to hear all the details that I need to appreciate the music.

 

[respice finem]

I've become so "comfortably numb", I prefer to listen to music or to watch movies at home.
Yes it's not "the real thing", but it's good enough for me. And has many advantages, such as:

• I can choose how loud it is
• I always have my good and comfortable listening position
• I can pause at any time
• no crazy ticket prices
• no parking woes
• no "deluge" of ads before the movie
• no morons doing moronic stuff
• ...

 

[marin.weigel]

I'm fortunate to be able to compare live vs. reproduced from some available live recordings of the concerts of my subscription to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich's Herkulessaal, but it always proves to clearly be a somewhat pale facsimile of the real thing, mainly due to diminished dynamics, as well as hall sound and feel.
Other than that, my stereo DIY, room-acoustics DSP'd, floor to ceiling full-range line-source speakers can sound stunningly real with certain tracks, mostly electronic productions without any natural comparison possible.
To my very limited such experience, only SOTA multi-channel surround-sound recordings in SOTA set-up venues are capable of closely recreating the real thing.
But multi-purpose living room stereo systems, as well as all earphones I was able to lay my hands on, won't ever be capable enough.

 

[SSS]

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.

No, it does not. It is just fooling around with some speaker chassis.

 

[JohnnyNG]

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.

Right. Non-overlapping magisteria.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

You'd have to attend unamplified acoustic live music performances to even have an opinion on this question, and even then, your opinion would be of very dubious credibility due to the ephemerality of our auditory memory (and the unreliability of our memory more broadly).

If a live performance is amplified, you would really just just be comparing your audio system + room acoustic to that of the venue.

 

[OldTimer]

That’s why I prefer 2-way speakers than 3-way.

 

[Scytales]

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 am a proponent of direct live vs recorded sound as an evaluation tool of the faithfulness of a hifi chain, from microphones to loudspeakers.

Let me quote Harry F. Olson and Herbert Belar (RCA Laboratory): "To achieve complete realism, an ideal sound reproducing system should produce sound which is indistinguishable from the original. To demonstrate the performance of such a system would require a setup which allows the direct comparison of reproduced and original sound." (in: Acoustics of Sound Reproduction in the Home, JAES, January 1960, volume 9, n°1, page 7 and following).

Many direct vs live sound experiments were made in the 1950s and 1960s in the the UK and the USA, some of which were famous and very impressive indeed.

Some examples.

March 2nd, 1956, an experiment was made in Mount Kisko Church, New York City, to compare the church organ to reproductions of the recording of said instrument, both in mono and stereo, before an audience of several hundred people. You can read about this experiment in the following resources:

1) Hi-Fi Music at Home, May-June 1956 (page 50, p. 52 of the pdf file): https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Hi-Fi-Music-at-Home/Music-a…

2) Audiocraft, Juanuary 1955 (p. 24, p. 26 of the pdf file): https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audiocraft/Audiocra…

3) Audio, April 1956 (p. 26, p. 30 of the pdf file): https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/50s/Audio-195…

The former article contains important statements from the author, Julian D. Hirsch, that proved to be key to the success of such experiments elsewhere (I have stressed what appears to me the most important statements in bold):

"There are four basic characteristics of a sound which must be duplicated for true fidelity or facsimile reproduction These are:
a) Frequency range. The full frequency range of the sound source must be reproduced, without significant distortion of any kind. Reduced to essentials, this means that the entire
recording and reproducing chain, from microphone to speaker, must have a flat frequency response and negligible non-linearity.
b) Dynamic range and sound level. The playback must create the same sound pressure at the listeners' ears as did the original sound. The reproducing system, therefore, should be capable of producing as much acoustic power as the original sound source.
c) Spatial distribution. The various components of the reproduced sound must originate from the same physical locations as their original counterparts. It is imperative that the microphone and loudspeaker be located as close together as possible.
d) Acoustic environment. In order to be played back in the room in which it was made, a recording must be as "dead" as possible. If room reverberation is audible in the recording, realism is destroyed."

October 9, 1956, Paul Klipsch organized a live vs reproduction concert in Hartford's Bushnell Memorial Hall with the help of the local symphonic orchestra performing Benjamin Britten's Young Person Guide to the Orchestra.

Some press articles about that event:

1) High Fidelity, December 1956 (page 9, p. 7 of the pdf file) : https://www.worldradiohistory.com/A...-High-Fidelity/50s/High-Fidelity-1956-Dec.pdf

2) Hifi World, December 1956 (page 12, p. 14 of the pdf file): https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio-Collection/Hi-Fi-World-1956-12.pdf

The former article also mentions the very famous Brigg's Concerts.

The following years, renown French hifi pioneer and manufacturer Georges Cabasse led the very first public demonstrations of live vs recorded sound he became famous for. The Claude Bolling jazz band band was recorded and played back at the Maison de la Chimie, in Paris. Testimonies about this experiment tell us that various two channels sound stereophonic recording set-ups were tried and compared to the live sound. Only the two widely spaced omnidirectional microphones recording technique, once pioneered by the famous US engineer Emory Cook, proved to be able to adequately fooled the audience. From this date, Cabasse adamantly support this recording technique and means of evaluation for recording and reproducing hardware. This led Cabasse to refined the art of direct to live comparison with multichannel recording techniques (up to 5 channels), as illustrated on this rare photography about a recording session:

This above picture shows one of the most, if not the most important prerequisite for success according to Cabasse: microphones and loudspeakers are placed as much as possible at the same locations. This follow the axiom set by Cabasse: the loudspeaker have to be viewed as a microphone in reverse. With this rule in mind, it is easy to understand that any recording technique that rely on mixing several channels together were considered as a recipe for failure.

But the most interesting aspect of the Cabasse demos, which took place at the Festival du Son in Paris and elsewhere up to 1996, is the comparison method: the orchestra performed the musical piece with several bars where the orchestra is replaced by the reproduction of section of the prerecorded performance, up to fifteen transitions betwen the real orchestra and reproduction occurring in any one piece of music. The goal was to get the least noticeable transition from orchestra to reproduction. The instantaneous switching between the orchestra and the reproduction got rid of the problem of the shortness of the auditory memory and the live sound used as the comparison point broke the "Audio's Circle of Confusion" coined by Dr Toole.

You can read all I was able to find about the Cabasse experiments here (in French): https://www.forumcabasse.org/wiki/L'âme_de_Cabasse_:_la_Live_Music

Another famous series of live vs recorded sound comparison experiments, although led in a different ways with pre-recorded sound in quasi-anechoic (outdoor) conditions, were done in the USA in the 1960s and early 1970s by Acoustic Research with the collaboration of the Fine Arts Quartet. You can read about this series of concerts here:

Hi-Fi Stereo Review, May 1969 (page 76, p. 70 of the pdf file) : https://www.worldradiohistory.com/A...iFI-Stereo/60s/HiFi-Stereo-Review-1969-05.pdf

Acoustic Research's founder, Edgar Villchur, was interviewed by the AES about this series of concerts:

He also wrote an interesting article about his experiments:

Audio, October 1964, "Techniques of Making Live versus Recorded Comparisons" (page 34, p. 68 of the pdf file): https://longkft.hu/audioblog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Audio-1964-10.pdf

There are many more direct vs reproduction experiments that I am aware of and, apart from Cabasse, other loudspeaker manufacturers has advocated the use of such a method to fine tune the design of their loudspeakers, as can be read in this B&W leaflet (page 16).

So, direct live vs reproduction comparison is actually an old and relatively well documented test methodology!

 

[Steakhouse]

A friend of mine used to listen to techno music and all other sort of electronic music in his big and open living room. We were there almost every weekend in the holidays season to hang out. He started with some hifi speakers but in the end he went with some big PA subs and tops in his living room. They delivered the sound you also get from clubs and discotheques when listening to that kind of music. It was very loud (too loud for me and I often went outside because of this) Rock music or classical music did not sound well and besides loud an annoying with nowhere near a real venue. Be it rock (not enough bass, no dynamics) or classical music (no dynamics crappy timpre due to PA speakers).

As many others pointed out, studio recordings are not meant to sound live. Even recordings of concerts dont have the needed dynamics.

 

[HomerIncognito]

I love live classical music. The dynamic range, complex dynamics and seing the conductor and other performers from a short distance (I like to sit close) is really irreproducible at home. In fact I rarely listen to classical music outside of concerts.

For other genres it's a mixed bag. Getting close enough to performers can get very tricky and not all of them are great live. It can still be a lot of fun, especially if the artists know how to interact with the audience and the atmosphere is great - another aspect that can't be reproduced at home.

I was at a music festival recently and they had lots of Meyer Sound 1100-LFCs combined with their line arrays. The amount of energy transferred through the air was insane, my baseball cap was bouncing on my head. Hearing protection was a necessity which also helped shaving off the somewhat harsh highs. Still sonically very different to what one hears at home but I wouldn't really call one better than the other.

 

[Gorgonzola]

Live sound and reproduced sound are two different things. Reproduced sound is never going to sound like live sound, especially acoustic music. But that's not to say the reproduced sound can't be even better than live sound depending on circumstances.

Venues for live performance vary hugely. If you have a 3rd rate seat in bad hall, reproduce sound coming from you tweaked home system can certainly sound better. Live sound offers a social experience that one can't have alone in from of a stereo system, but have some friends over and it can be much better at home.

 

[SigbergAudio]

If a live performance is amplified, you would really just just be comparing your audio system + room acoustic to that of the venue.

No, because an amplified live event and a produced track is not processed in the same way, as explained earlier in the thread.

 

[Ultrasonic]

This comparison is presumably very different for those who go to live music events with purely acoustic instruments vs some form of amplification. Virtually all of the live music I go to is of the latter type and so in some ways live is worse than recorded and reproduced at home. Most obviously to me in term of actually being able to hear/understand lyrics. Generally the main positives of live music are the visual show, crowd interaction and being loud.

 

[HiMu]

No, it does not. It is just fooling around with some speaker chassis.

Could you be a bit more specific about what is "just fooling around with some speaker chassis"?

 

[Eric Natural]

I think largely it's the dynamics/micro-dynamics of a real instrument in front of you cannot be reproduced. Drums or a piano - I can instantly perceive as recorded vs actual. As far as popular & electronic concerts ; I've heard varying good & bad systems/rooms. U2 at the Sphere in 2023 was quite possibly a better listening experience than them playing on my HT living room setup.

 

[Multicore]

A tricky question. In popular music the albums are commonly recorded before the band plays them in concert and often the live band has to try to emulate the album, which ends up disappointing to those already familiar with it. Otoh, a good performance by a good orchestra in a good symphony hall is unbeatable and I have no expectation of an experience like that at home. Oah, there are popular music bands that are always better live because musically they much less fun (inspired?) in the studio. Oyah, chamber music can be awesome in the studio, solo classical guitar for example, you'll need a good seat to hear it better than a well positioned pair of mics.

 

[solderdude]

A stereo system is for reproducing recordings. Mostly 2 channel but multichannel is also an option.
Those recordings usually are manipulated in the studio anyway in various ways.
Even live recordings are mixed afterwards.
The volume of the actual performance also is much higher than what is desired for playback. This too requires some adjustments.

This simply means ... NO a reproduced recording is not the same as a life performance nor intended to sound exactly like a live recording.
It is supposed to sound good at sensible levels in a living room.
For this reason it makes no sense to want the same experience as a live performance in your living room.

It is actually surprising how well 2ch and above all multichannel recordings can sound in your living/listening room anyway.

 

[MattHooper]

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.

When I was doing my live versus recorded tests one of the differences was that my recordings were uncompressed. They really did seem to portray some of the more realistic dynamics of an acoustic instrument playing in front of me.

As I’ve mentioned before, recordings of my acoustic guitar and my son playing saxophone were particularly realistic, sounding on my MBL omnis, especially from outside the room. (and I fooled a few people into thinking my son was in that room practising saxophone ). It was the clarity but also the lively sense of dynamics that I think also sold it.

 

[Peluvius]

I think the fact that you are sharing the concert with many other people changes the experience. We haven't really figured it out yet but the energy (or whatever you want to call it) of hundreds / thousands of people in one space is a unique feeling. Combine that with the acoustics of the venue (open air, concert hall, stadium) and you have something that cannot really be reproduced in a home setting.