Reality Is Overrated When It Comes to Recordings (Article from music Engineer/Producer)

[Newman]

...the reaction I have typically seen to some tracks on my system from non-audiophiles almost inevitably takes the form of shock, and some expression like "I never knew it could sound so REAL." There are some vocal tracks that leave people looking like they've seen ghost.

...and this is where I should introduce the Uncanny Valley Effect into this thread.

For readers unfamiliar with it, this is where our increasing preference, for reproductions that are more and more natural/realistic, suddenly takes a nosedive into strong negative preference when the reproduction gets too realistic, ie "uncanny", and our preference enters the Uncanny Valley.

This effect is well studied with robots that have too-nearly-human faces or movements and gives people the shivers, but has also been confirmed academically in relation to playback audio ("The Audio Uncanny Valley", Grimshaw M, 2009) and human voice ("The Uncanny Valley of Human Voice", Dickens G et al, 2013).

There is also a claim that the Uncanny Valley cannot be traversed (coming out on the other side of the Valley), and this is under debate wrt robots, but not AFAICT being researched wrt audio. I think it is hard enough to make audio playback good enough to get into it (although Matt's "seen a ghost" story is a reminder, his listeners were not entering strongly negative preference territory), and so it might never happen that we can traverse it for audio, especially since we always know it is not the real thing.

Getting into the Uncanny Valley with audio seems to take a lot of speakers — dozens more than we see on complex home MCH setups, for instance. Although it seems to be easier with ‘threatening’ sounds, we are interested in the more general application.

My takeaways in relation to this thread:-

• there is a long way to go in a positive direction towards realism and naturalness
• it is not futile just because 100% is not achievable…preferences do increase
• we don’t actually want to get too close; it backfires
• if, as seems to be the case, we can reach the Uncanny Valley by extending current MCH technology and techniques, then we are on the right path, so keep progressing, near to but not over the lip of the Valley
• given the gap that lies ahead from the current SOTA (and especially 2CH), if smart sound engineers are adding a little ‘juice’ to current recordings in a well-informed way that partly compensates for the ‘relatively lifeless’ impression from ‘straight’ recordings not being super realistic or natural so far, then that is worth having. Treating such 'juice' like an impurity is counter-productive.

cheers

 

[theREALdotnet]

But as I say, the origins of sound reproduction and hi-fi was fidelity to the sound of the real thing, not "the recording" simply in of itself.

Absolutely. I consider HiFi to describe the entire chain of equipment, from the singer’s mouth to the listener’s ear. We can, as part of this hobby, of course not pick the equipment and techniques used during the recording phase, that’s why I reckon hunting for great recordings is as important as searching for great speakers in HiFi.

I would say that my HiFi setup (equipment and room) is wasted on 70% or more of my music collection, but the few great recordings I have (or have yet to discover) still make it worthwhile. The rest I play just because I like the music, but I would play them through the car stereo just as happily.

 

[MattHooper]

Yes, and it's all nonsense. Just like most audiophile words.

The stereo field is as wide as your speakers (assuming some phase tricks haven't been done to enhance that). You want it wider, move them farther apart.

The depth of something in a recording is generally controlled by reverb. You want it to sound far away, the mix engineer ads reverb.

Height? I don't recall having a height control on my mixing desk, so I don't know about that one.

I mean, unless the recording was done with a Binaural system or ambisonics most of these things are in the listeners head, and they most likely think they're there because someone told them they would be there.

Well, as I say, you can always keep something "nonsense" to yourself by refusing to accept well known terms and definitions.

Stereo playback can create an apparent sensation of depth, height and width - which is what is being referred to as a "soundstage. " To reject this is a pretty strange hill to die on, IMO.

(I was playing a chet baker piece last night and later a symphonic recording. Chet Baker singing was a "dry" mono image, so appeared in a tightly constrained area between the speakers and close to the plain of the speakers. Exactly as it sounded with my eyes closed. The symphonic recording had gobs of depth and width and with eyes closed I had the sensation of hearing instruments "through a hall" and the spread of the orchestra actually seemed to go beyond the width of the speakers. With my eyes closed if I pointed to the first violins or double basses/low brass, they did not seem limited by the width of my speakers. "It's all in your head." Well...yeah...stereo is an illusion).

 

[MattHooper]

...and this is where I should introduce the Uncanny Valley Effect into this thread.

For readers unfamiliar with it, this is where our increasing preference, for reproductions that are more and more natural/realistic, suddenly takes a nosedive into strong negative preference when the reproduction gets too realistic, ie "uncanny", and our preference enters the Uncanny Valley.

This effect is well studied with robots that have too-nearly-human faces or movements and gives people the shivers, but has also been confirmed academically in relation to playback audio ("The Audio Uncanny Valley", Grimshaw M, 2009) and human voice ("The Uncanny Valley of Human Voice", Dickens G et al, 2013).

There is also a claim that the Uncanny Valley cannot be traversed (coming out on the other side of the Valley), and this is under debate wrt robots, but not AFAICT being researched wrt audio. I think it is hard enough to make audio playback good enough to get into it (although Matt's "seen a ghost" story is a reminder, his listeners were not entering strongly negative preference territory), and so it might never happen that we can traverse it for audio, especially since we always know it is not the real thing.

Getting into the Uncanny Valley with audio seems to take a lot of speakers — dozens more than we see on complex home MCH setups, for instance. Although it seems to be easier with ‘threatening’ sounds, we are interested in the more general application.

My takeaways in relation to this thread:-

• there is a long way to go in a positive direction towards realism and naturalness
• it is not futile just because 100% is not achievable…preferences do increase
• we don’t actually want to get too close; it backfires
• if, as seems to be the case, we can reach the Uncanny Valley by extending current MCH technology and techniques, then we are on the right path, so keep progressing, near to but not over the lip of the Valley
• given the gap that lies ahead from the current SOTA (and especially 2CH), if smart sound engineers are adding a little ‘juice’ to current recordings in a well-informed way that partly compensates for the ‘relatively lifeless’ impression from ‘straight’ recordings not being super realistic or natural so far, then that is worth having. Treating such 'juice' like an impurity is counter-productive.

cheers

Nice post Newman! I like the "uncanny valley" analogy!

It reminds me of what tends to impress people (audiophiles etc) in terms of imaging/"realism." Maybe it fits in to your analogy, maybe it doesn't.

But to my mind there are sort of two versions of "seeming real" in stereo. So take a vocal recording. On a competent stereo, a very vivid sonic image can be achieved, the sense that "something/someone" has just appeared, singing, between the speakers. It can have astonishing clarity and detail. On those surface descriptions it can feel like something "quite real and vivid" is occurring between the speakers. In this way you can impress someone with any number of vocal recordings - even very artificial recordings where the voice has exaggerated sibilance, sounds 'hardened' by processing etc - can have this "real sensation" in terms of just how vivid it is.

But then there is the comparison to real life voices. That's where much of the artifice of the illusion is laid bare. The above version is like an electronic version of a human being, a hologram that doesn't truly bare all the traits of human flesh and blood. But the above illusion can be so vivid it can impress someone as "realistic" anyway because it's just so vivid. I've seen audiophiles remark on how realistic a vocal track may sound at audio shows, but they are reacting to the vividness not the actual naturalness. When I compare the vocal track to human voices in the room, the artifice of the stereo playback is obvious.

Still...I certainly find, depending on the recording, you certainly can get "closer to the real thing." I have heard some vocal tracks where it was almost effortless to imagine I was hearing real singers in a hall. Pretty rare though.

 

[Ricardus]

Well, as I say, you can always keep something "nonsense" to yourself by refusing to accept well known terms and definitions.

Stereo playback can create an apparent sensation of depth, height and width - which is what is being referred to as a "soundstage. " To reject this is a pretty strange hill to die on, IMO.

(I was playing a chet baker piece last night and later a symphonic recording. Chet Baker singing was a "dry" mono image, so appeared in a tightly constrained area between the speakers and close to the plain of the speakers. Exactly as it sounded with my eyes closed. The symphonic recording had gobs of depth and width and with eyes closed I had the sensation of hearing instruments "through a hall" and the spread of the orchestra actually seemed to go beyond the width of the speakers. With my eyes closed if I pointed to the first violins or double basses/low brass, they did not seem limited by the width of my speakers. "It's all in your head." Well...yeah...stereo is an illusion).

Audio is (in my case) a 2 channel electrical signal, and the only parameters that really can change are amplitude, and L-R balance. Where is the vertical control coming from? (again, not counting any out of the ordinary phase games or EQ changes.

The rest is in your head. And this can be proven by finding two different people and asking them about the "soundstage" of a particular product. Both will vary wildly, certainly.

This reminds me of the time I was talking to two different recording engineers about a console in the Amek line called the "Big." Ironically it was the smallest console they made. We had one in the C-Room of a studio where I worked.

One guy said the Big was OK, but it had a very narrow stereo image. The other guy in a separate conversation told me he loved the Big because it had a really wide stereo image. So which is it?

I mean, as long as the pan function was implemented properly, the stereo image is the stereo image. I can pan CH1 hard left, and CH2 hard right, and that's it. As long as both channels' signals are panned (100%) hard left and hard right, and you can test for it, there's nothing else to discuss.

 

[watchnerd]

Audio is (in my case) a 2 channel electrical signal, and the only parameters that really can change are amplitude, and L-R balance. Where is the vertical control coming from? (again, not counting any out of the ordinary phase games or EQ changes.

The rest is in your head. And this can be proven by finding two different people and asking them about the "soundstage" of a particular product. Both will vary wildly, certainly.

This reminds me of the time I was talking to two different recording engineers about a console in the Amek line called the "Big." Ironically it was the smallest console they made. We had one in the C-Room of a studio where I worked.

One guy said the Big was OK, but it had a very narrow stereo image. The other guy in a separate conversation told me he loved the Big because it had a really wide stereo image. So which is it?

I mean, as long as the pan function was implemented properly, the stereo image is the stereo image. I can pan CH1 hard left, and CH2 hard right, and that's it. As long as both channels' signals are panned (100%) hard left and hard right, and you can test for it, there's nothing else to discuss.

There is also some psychoacoustic effect one can introduce by playing with boost / cut at about 1600 Hz to move the perceived image forwards / backwards.

(or at least it works on me)

Yet another example of artful fakery.

 

[watchnerd]

...and this is where I should introduce the Uncanny Valley Effect into this thread.

For readers unfamiliar with it, this is where our increasing preference, for reproductions that are more and more natural/realistic, suddenly takes a nosedive into strong negative preference when the reproduction gets too realistic, ie "uncanny", and our preference enters the Uncanny Valley.

This effect is well studied with robots that have too-nearly-human faces or movements and gives people the shivers, but has also been confirmed academically in relation to playback audio ("The Audio Uncanny Valley", Grimshaw M, 2009) and human voice ("The Uncanny Valley of Human Voice", Dickens G et al, 2013).

There is also a claim that the Uncanny Valley cannot be traversed (coming out on the other side of the Valley), and this is under debate wrt robots, but not AFAICT being researched wrt audio. I think it is hard enough to make audio playback good enough to get into it (although Matt's "seen a ghost" story is a reminder, his listeners were not entering strongly negative preference territory), and so it might never happen that we can traverse it for audio, especially since we always know it is not the real thing.

Getting into the Uncanny Valley with audio seems to take a lot of speakers — dozens more than we see on complex home MCH setups, for instance. Although it seems to be easier with ‘threatening’ sounds, we are interested in the more general application.

My takeaways in relation to this thread:-

• there is a long way to go in a positive direction towards realism and naturalness
• it is not futile just because 100% is not achievable…preferences do increase
• we don’t actually want to get too close; it backfires
• if, as seems to be the case, we can reach the Uncanny Valley by extending current MCH technology and techniques, then we are on the right path, so keep progressing, near to but not over the lip of the Valley
• given the gap that lies ahead from the current SOTA (and especially 2CH), if smart sound engineers are adding a little ‘juice’ to current recordings in a well-informed way that partly compensates for the ‘relatively lifeless’ impression from ‘straight’ recordings not being super realistic or natural so far, then that is worth having. Treating such 'juice' like an impurity is counter-productive.

cheers

I you ever want a chuckle, listen to the old demo tracks from the early days of stereo used to demonstrate 'the power of stereo' to buyers.

It's also sorts of goofy audio SFX, like trains chugging from left to right speakers, ping pong matches between speakers, etc.

And some stuff that is just loud, intended to startle.

 

[MattHooper]

Audio is (in my case) a 2 channel electrical signal, and the only parameters that really can change are amplitude, and L-R balance. Where is the vertical control coming from? (again, not counting any out of the ordinary phase games or EQ changes.

At a minimum, soundstage height can change with the height of the relevant drivers (which will also relate to the type of drivers/crossovers/where the sound is made to sum etc).

I can change the apparent soundstage height just by altering the position of my head in my chair.

Yes of course the illusion is "in my head." Where else would an illusion be?

The rest is in your head. And this can be proven by finding two different people and asking them about the "soundstage" of a particular product. Both will vary wildly, certainly.

Well your claim there has been falsified many times in my own experience.

I discuss differences in soundstage ALL THE TIME with my audio friends. In fact one is a reviewer who is constantly getting in different speakers for review. I go over and we exchange notes on what we are hearing and it is usually very consistent. For instance a pair of speakers he has currently, I played a whole bunch of tracks I knew well on my own system and it immediately struck me that the soundstage/imaging seemed to draw everything closer. Drums that had a significant sense of distance on my (and his other) speakers sounded like they had moved much closer, right up to the speakers. When I remarked on this he said "that's EXACTLY what I hear with these speakers too." We spent some time describing to one another the idiosyncracies of how these speakers seemed to image relative to others, at least in his room, and we were on the same page.

This convergence in describing sonic qualities of a speaker's tone, imaging, soundstaging happens all the time, just like we can discuss the audio qualities of any individual track of music. "Spacious, or constricted, or wet/reverby or dry, forward, deep, etc"

 

[watchnerd]

Getting heavy deja vu with this thread.

I feel like I'm reading the same sorts of stuff I used to read in TAS and Stereophile when they came in that paperback book-like format in the late 80s / early 90s.

 

[Ricardus]

At a minimum, soundstage height can change with the height of the relevant drivers (which will also relate to the type of drivers/crossovers/where the sound is made to sum etc).

I can change the apparent soundstage height just by altering the position of my head in my chair.

Yes of course the illusion is "in my head." Where else would an illusion be?



Well your claim there has been falsified many times in my own experience.

I discuss differences in soundstage ALL THE TIME with my audio friends. In fact one is a reviewer who is constantly getting in different speakers for review. I go over and we exchange notes on what we are hearing and it is usually very consistent. For instance a pair of speakers he has currently, I played a whole bunch of tracks I knew well on my own system and it immediately struck me that the soundstage/imaging seemed to draw everything closer. Drums that had a significant sense of distance on my (and his other) speakers sounded like they had moved much closer, right up to the speakers. When I remarked on this he said "that's EXACTLY what I hear with these speakers too." We spent some time describing to one another the idiosyncracies of how these speakers seemed to image relative to others, at least in his room, and we were on the same page.

This convergence in describing sonic qualities of a speaker's tone, imaging, soundstaging happens all the time, just like we can discuss the audio qualities of any individual track of music. "Spacious, or constricted, or wet/reverby or dry, forward, deep, etc"

OK, really tall speakers will change imaging. Which is what I said in an earlier post. Not about height specifically, but about stereo width (moving your speakers). Sure.

But I'm wondering why people say an amp or a preamp has good or bad soundstage. Not speakers.

 

[Ricardus]

There is also some psychoacoustic effect one can introduce by playing with boost / cut at about 1600 Hz to move the perceived image forwards / backwards.

(or at least it works on me)

Yet another example of artful fakery.

Yeah, I'm talking about straight signal with no trickery.

 

[Darkscience]

This article appeared a while back in an on-line audiophile review site. (The type I'd guess most people here wouldn't visit).

I thought it was quite insightful as a message from a recording engineer/mixer/producer to audiophiles wanting naturalistic recordings and realism.
It does cover aspects of discussions here and in most audiophile forums. But it was nice to see it sort of tied up in a bow in an article:

Reality Is Overrated When It Comes to Recordings:

How Recordings Are Produced, and What It Means to Your Hi-Fi | The Ivory Tower

Hi-Fi news, gear reviews, and interviews

parttimeaudiophile.com

My take: Assuming one agrees with the gist of the article, it does make sense of the approach of those audiophiles (typical of ASR members I think) where you just want to accurately reproduce the recording. All the production choices and effects in so much recorded music is what it is: artistic choices for the most part, and that's what one wants to hear, not some enforced "realism" per se. (But also, if a recording is meant to sound natural, it should come across that way in an accurate system).

Personally I generally agree: I consider all the production choices and artificiality to be part of the artistic content (which they obviously are). And, as cliche as it may be to say, so many of those "audiophile recordings" - minimalist micing, low compression yadda, yadda - often come across as pretty bland. I remember when a pal of mine who was a guitarist in a local artsy pop/folksy band became an audiophile and convinced the band and recording engineers to go for a more audiophile-approved "natural" minimally mic'd presentation. Well, yeah, it sounded a bit more "real" or natural in some aspects, but artistically it took a step back and just sort of "sat there" in that bland way of many audiophile recordings. To my ears it was a failure relative to their previously produced recordings.

(BTW, I'm on record here on being fascinated by live vs reproduced sound, and wanting to nudge my sound a bit more towards "natural/real" in some ways, but not in some fool's errand goal of everything sounding truly real, just enough flavour to taste, without losing the distinctive character of different recordings).

I'm curious about other people's thoughts on the article or subject.

My thought is I just want to hear the recording period, the final product whether it is good or bad. I doubt the one mic deal for a minimalist recording would sound good, I can guarantee it would not give me the same effect of being in the room.

The type of music has a huge impact on what my preferences are.

First preference would be to listen to it live, I would much rather listen to Paul McCartney playing Bass/Guitar and singing sitting in a chair in front of me than listening to him on any recording of any quality period. If we want to add Ringo, John and George to that mix go for it, if you were right there sitting in the middle of them for a private concert that is #1, anyone disagree? We can include listening to a live Orchestra in a hall with amazing reverb. Nothing will ever be as good as being there. Or if I could invite James Hetfield to my house and plug into my amp and play some riffs, this would surpass any recording.

Second preference is a well recorded track, does not matter if it is live or studio. Live or Studio are one in the same to me if it is recorded well. For example, Nirvana Unplugged / Metallica S&M. It is just as good as Studio because it basically was recorded well. I do not care if they used EQ to get to sound right during the mix, one of the challenges of mixing is getting the instruments to all make an appearance, so they do not drown each other out. You can add any synthesizer music to this, drums, beats, hip hop type stuff.

Third is a live concert, this is not exactly live, you are mostly hearing through some speakers and it is being mixed on some console. You are not actually hearing it live like I described in my first preference where the musician is playing and your actually hearing him directly, not through some system. This is also just purely as far as sound quality goes, because I rather go to the concert, drink some beers and mosh than sit at home with my sound system. When you go to a concert you do not hear Nergals actual voice it is mic and you hear it through a sound system, you do not hear his CAB you hear a miced CAB through a sound system.

Fourth is what your describing as some minimalist thing, to me this is what us musicians call a demo tape. It is not meant to be heard as the final product, this is more for nostalgia for me. For example when they add some demo music to the end of Tom Petty album or something. It is interesting hearing that but its not what I am going to Jam out to.

 

[Robin L]

OK, really tall speakers will change imaging. Which is what I said in an earlier post. Not about height specifically, but about stereo width (moving your speakers). Sure.

But I'm wondering why people say an amp or a preamp has good or bad soundstage. Not speakers.

I've owned two* vintage transformer-coupled tube amps---Marantz 8b and Scott 299b---that managed to make vocalists "pop" from the mix. I remember using a Stax energizer coupled to my Marantz 8b instead of the energizer/direct coupled tube amp that came with the 'earspeakers'. I'm sure the differences between the two would be easily measured, the sonic difference was that the 8b sounded the most focused in the mid-and, becoming increasingly vague at frequency extremes compared to my SRM T-1.energizer/amp. I'm sure there's Photoshop effects that do the same, making the subject in the center in focus, while everything surrounding the subject is out of focus to a greater or lesser degree. And of course, there's ways of doing this in camera.

I suspect a lot of audio myths were formed when there was some foundation to those stories. There were a few cases of disc rot from a few places in a limited period of time, long ago. The myth of "disc rot" persists. A few early CDs were really "bright" because recording engineers hadn't yet figured out to use the old microphones with the new recorders or how to work without tape's soft treble compression. But that happened over a limited period of time. And the myth of "harsh digital sound" persists. Back in 1975 one would be more likely to access to old Marantz or other transformer coupled tube gear [Audio Research picked up on this] and hear the difference compared to solid state offerings from Pioneer et al. These days the sound of good tube gear and good solid state gear is close enough for human hearing. But in 2022, the myth persists.

*Also owned the Pas 3/Dyna 70 combo and a Fisher 500C, did not notice the soundstage effect as much, though I suspect the room they were in and the speakers they were attached would explain why soundstaging would be wonky with those systems.

 

[DVDdoug]

I didn't read the article (and I didn't read all of the comments ) but I agree with the premise. I don't want a rock band or full symphony in my living room even if they would fit! For me, "big sound" needs "big space".

And 99% of the time I'm not listening at "realistic" SPL levels.

 

[tuga]

2l's recordings are of real events in which the microphones/audience are surrounded by the performers. Are you saying that a perfectly accurate, transparent and "realistic" recording will not be judged so if it depicts a specific event that the listener has never experienced? We do generalize (we cannot not do so) and base our judgements on multiple prior similar experiences.

How can you judge realism if you've not experienced it in real life?

 

[Robin L]

First preference would be to listen to it live, I would much rather listen to Paul McCartney playing Bass/Guitar and singing sitting in a chair in front of me than listening to him on any recording of any quality period. If we want to add Ringo, John and George to that mix go for it, if you were right there sitting in the middle of them for a private concert that is #1, anyone disagree? We can include listening to a live Orchestra in a hall with amazing reverb. Nothing will ever be as good as being there. Or if I could invite James Hetfield to my house and plug into my amp and play some riffs, this would surpass any recording.

Me, 110% percent.

The Beatles weren't THE BEATLES until George Martin told the band that it's all well and good to play with whoever you want for public performance, but you will need a real drummer for recording. Thus John, Paul, George and Ringo. The Beatles, as we know them, are a studio artifact. Once the Beatles became THE BEATLES it was no longer possible for them to perform "live".

There was no 'performance' of "Tomorrow Never Knows" in the sense of four blokes sitting down and jamming. It didn't happen in "real time" and was 100% studio trickery. A lot of studio trickery is a lot of what the Beatles were all about.

 

[tuga]

I think it's worth re-visiting the original point made by the recording engineer in the article.

His point wasn't that "a greater sense of sonic realism in recordings is impossible" but rather: Audiophiles may want recordings to generally sound real, but many if not most recordings won't sound that say, and here's why, and why stylization is often preferred when producing music.

So it's a defense of why artists and engineers often don't seek naturalistic recordings. Not that there aren't or can't be recordings that sound more natural and realistic.

I don't expect natural or realistic sound from much of the music I love, but I certainly can recognize when some recordings do sound more like the real thing. I've been doing demos of my hi-fi systems for decades for interested non-audiophiles. Many "normal folk" these days have no expectation of music ever sounding "real." That's not what they listen for, they don't listen on components that have any hope of achieving that, it's not a "thing" for them. Which is perfectly understandable. But the reaction I have typically seen to some tracks on my system from non-audiophiles almost inevitably takes the form of shock, and some expression like "I never knew it could sound so REAL." There are some vocal tracks that leave people looking like they've seen ghost. I've had people tell me years later it made such an impression on them in terms of it's realism.

Me, I recognize how these tracks more closely approach reality than others, while also being acutely aware of how they fall short of reality.
But even the non-audiophiles easily recognize when they are hearing something "closer to real sounding" than what they are used to.

With few exceptions, pop, rock and even most jazz studio mixes are not supposed to sound realistic: the mix is the recording, not the musical event.

There's nothing wrong with that, in fact many of those recordings would sound pretty bland if recorded from a distance with a pair of mics and unprocessed.

But for this reason they can never sound realistic. Close-mic'ing can't sound realistic.

 

[tuga]

Film scores, which often sound better than the vast majority of actual classical recordings

Many audiophiles prefer the hyper-realistic sound of close-mic'ed instruments for their exaggerated presence, the mechanical noises, the enhanced detail.
But such recordings do not portray what one hears in real life, except perhaps if you're the musician or a maestro.

 

[Robin L]

With few exceptions, pop, rock and even most jazz studio mixes are not supposed to sound realistic: the mix is the recording, not the musical event.

There's nothing wrong with that, in fact many of those recordings would sound pretty bland if recorded from a distance with a pair of mics and unprocessed.

But for this reason they can never sound realistic. Close-mic'ing can't sound realistic.

It's kind of like "How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?"

Perspectives in pop music mixes have little to do with reality. Fleetwood Mac's got a zillion mics on Mick's kit, everything panned so each element of the kit can stand out in the mix without ever overpowering it, there's a ten foot tall guitar a couple of inches from one ear, and a fifteen foot tall vocal in the middle. This is something enough people have heard often enough, they assume it's real. Audio techs sweat bullets in order to get the same effects in public performance.

 

[tuga]

Totally agree. Also remember @tuga 90% or more of the sound heard when attending a live classical performance in a venue is from the side and back walls, and the ceiling. And, although we can distinguish direct from reverberant, the reverberant is the sound of the space and is dominant. And we need multichannel (MCH) playback at home to get anywhere near to acceptable replication of this. Stereo (2CH) is hopeless for this task, and BTW the notion that 2CH can use the walls of the home listening room to recover a sense of venue is beyond ludicrous, just in case anyone was thinking along such lines.

...and that is why people trying to describe simple,"pure", 2-mic-to-2-channel productions as most natural sounding are kidding themselves. Most likely literally, ie confirmation bias.

Close mic'ing will not capture the ambient sound as listened live in a concert hall or church, and it will not capture the soundscape accurately either.
Multi-channel will generate more envelopment but realism requires 1-mic-to-1-channel. 5 channels will increase the level of envelopment but are still insuficient to reproduce the original soundfield.
Early reflections are detrimental to the recreation of the soundscape (they interfere with the recorded ambience cues) and should not be used for the reproduction of classical music.