Can HiFi ever sound real?

EDIT by michaelab:
This thread is a split off the "3 lunatics in the assylum / visit to Titian's" thread to continue the "can hifi sound real discussion" (split at Graham's request). I've added some quotes in here to give it the right context:

Tones,

I wonder if maybe it's the psychological "preparation" that you go through that's missing from the hi-fi experience that is causing this seperation between "hi-fi" and the real thing in your mind? Getting ready to go out to a concert, arriving, hearing the orchestra tune up, the build and expectation of hearing the opening notes of the music, fellow audience members coughing, the feeling you get when not only you but also others around you know that an exceptional performance has just taken place and you all spontaneously applaud enthusiastically?

All these combination of the above things are unique in the way that they happen during a live performance. Every live performance is also unique, unlike a recording which is always the same. Any help?

 

There's undoubtedly an element of that in it, Henry, but I think it goes deeper. Something in me refuses to accept that this (and the "this" in Titian's case is Something Else Again, believe me) is real and that the sound is not coming from an orchestra spread in front of me but from these two boxes here and here. I know we all know that, but in me it seems to be harder to ignore. Perhaps this is why Mana stands did precisely nothing for me - the effect may be too subtle for me to accept.

 

I think you're right Tones,


IMHO trying to simulate a live event is like trying to simulate a studio in your living room. Both are seemingly futile I think. I would perhaps compare trying to do this to ... reading a book and analysing the use of language instead of just getting wrapped up in the story and enjoying it.


Surely we should just be able to say 'yes' or 'no' to a sound and 'yes' or 'no' to a piece of kit - purely on the basis of whether we like the way it sounds or not?....... i.e. 'yes this sounds better to me, or no it sounds worse' ?..... whats the alternative? spending money on a sound we do not prefer simply because it does a hifi event especially well? - like the tsssk of a hi-hat or a parp of a trombone, fart of the lead singer etc.

IME hifi reviews in magazines just take a 'yes' or a 'no' and extrapolate it over about 4 pages! - I exagerate, but you know what I mean Im sure.


More horseplop in the next stunning installment from..
Chris

 

Sounds like you guys had a great experience. Next time I'm on one of my reasonably regular trips to Zurich I'll have to see if I can fit in a visit myself Thanks for the offer Titian!

Clearly if any of you guys are passing through Portugal then another impromptu bake off at the headquaters of the Lisbon section could be organized. I've only got 500CDs and no LPs though

Anyway, Graham - your point about a hifi being more able to make chamber music (in it's loosest sense, to include jazz, and small "unplugged" pop recordings etc. aswell) realistic than say, orchestral music is one I've often wondered about. In my system that kind of music does indeed sound a lot more convincingly live than any other.

I'm sure that your idea about the complexity and intermingled harmonics etc is part of the reason why bigger music is hard to get right but IMO a large part of it is that your listening room also simulates the acoustics of a typical chamber music venue much more accurately. However hard I try to suspend disbelief, it's just not credible for me to imagine a 200 piece orchestra banging out Wagner in the 3m x 4m area between me and my speakers - whereas a jazz trio, or solo piano - well that is credible for me.

Michael.

 

Sorry Henry, but it's simply a case of all hifi doing a crap job of recreating live performances. No exceptions, you cannot recreate a live acoustic set with any electronic equiment available. To pursue such a goal is ultimately futile and very expensive.

I thank you

 

That's an excellent analogy Chris.

I'm still trying ascertain what our Tones is having a suspension of belief problem with. Is it the enjoyment of the story, or the print on the page not being clear for you Tones on this hi-fi vs live msuic thing? Or a bit of both?

 

Merl, I wasn't necessarily thinking of the total and utter re-creation of the acoustic in which the music was performed in. For me that is reasonably important, but not *that* important. I'm just looking for something good enough to evoke the psycological (and metaphysical) bodily responses I get from being at a live performance. One is extreme, that other is not so extreme IMHO, if you get my drift

 

I'm not sure what I mean myself, Henry! However, to take Chris's analogy, I love the story but never analyse the construction (in contrast to actually reading, where I do both - words and their use are a large part of my profession). For example, Graham made a point about Titian's great soundstage. Now I didn't hear as much music on Titian's system as Graham did, but on what I heard I simply didn't notice any soundstage (which I understand to be an apparent location of instruments in space, so that instrument 1 sounds closer to you than does instrument 2 - a front-to-back separation, rather than a side-to-side separation). Now, perhaps this is a matter of education to listen for such a thing, but to me it certainly wasn't intuitive.

I thought about my own systems and I can't say that I ever noticed a soundstage with them. And I confess that I don't miss it. Perhaps I'm a PRaT without realising it! But then, I can't say I've noticed much of a soundstage in orchestral concerts. Perhaps it's a small group thing, as I think Graham said.

In any case, the differences he heard I didn't hear. So, I asked myself, why didn't I? Then I thought of all my other hi-fi failures (Mana, the Quad 33 mod, interconnects, LP12 v. Mimik CD) and wondered if they were all manifestations of the same thing, a sort of General Theory of Toneslessness. I'm working on it...

 

Tones, it could be that you're a perfectionist of the highest order Are you a Virgo?

regards

 

(a) Only insofar as I make marks higher up the wall I'm trying to clear.

(b) No, I'm Cancerous (I think...)

 

funny you say that Tones .
about a month back , i was over at my brothers listening to his new toys .(surround sound package , but with half decent speakers )
we had a listen to it in stereo and swapped seats , so we,d have the same listening perspectives .
in both places i could hear a very definate soundstage , not much detail , and poor bass , but definitely a soundstage .
he , on the other hand insisted he could hear two seperate speakers (so not , not even a realistic stereo performance , let alone a soundstage )he couldn,t even say for sure where the singer was
he was happy with the detail and thought the bass was great.


so maybe its just a case of different peoples ears/brains processing the information diferently .
or perhaps the power of suggestion .....
i expected a soundstage , so i heard one , he didn,t really know what to expect and so heard something completely different .

 

It seems as if this is very much the case. During a brief skirmish in the "war of the worlds" back on HFC Richard Nicholas suggested very much the same to me - different people's brains have different abilities at inserting the 'missing bits' from the information given us by a pair of speakers - and cited people being unable to hear in stereo as opposed to two point sources. I guess they're the ones with the more accurate hearing?

Any psychoacoustics researchers out there?

There's also a couple of major essays on the subject from some familiar faces here (HFC) - which I really ought to read properly before pontificating any more myself.

 

I'm going to agree with the majority of the guy's here, I don't think there is a system in exsistance (or if it is, then is been kept under wraps), than can produce 'A real event'
Few may have come close, but I feel it's a fruitless task.
Might stir up a honet's nest with this though, I personaly think, it's more difficult to 'reproduce' a classical concert, than most other forms of events, a typical 5 piece band playing live, will require a different set of variables, to that of a Full blown Orchestra, (PRaT/Dynamic's/slam/speed and feed back ) as opposed to Scale/staging delicasies, wide open dispersal and realistic mid range timbre's and ultimate volume)
I know a lot of people say, there is no such thing as a 'Live' sound, maybe there is isn't, but I can reproduce a bloody good facsimarly (unlike my spelling )
So, why worry musical preferences have a large choice in the way we like our OWN systems to sound. and that at the end of the day is the only thing that counts
Entering bunker now

 

And yet you still insist certain things are outright "crap" just because they're not to your preference

 

Thinking about it over the day, this is also the conclusion I reached, Kermit. The aural clues that, to one person,apparently locate an instrument in space may, to another, just seem as if that instrument is playing louder/softer. It means that the whole business of soundstage is entirely subjective - some people's ear/brain systems interpret it that way, others don't. I'm most relieved to know that I'm not the only mug in town!

 

Yo are of corse quite correct mo, once you've had silk why use cotton, smilies aside, they are limits of reproduction that are well and truely Dire Tripe, so why polish a turd? copyright Henry T 2003
However being a sane normal person what I or others feel should be of no 'Clinical' concequence, as it's yourself that is the only one that matters really.regardless of what other do/say feel
seems P.C. may not be the next black

 

Don't know why Tone - that's about the most reasoned and least controversial thing you've ever posted

Michael.

 

Best put a stop to that right now :WMarrives

 

The power needed to create the dynamics of a piano would be immense. But would you want the full recreation of that sound. Domestic considerations do for many, play an important part.

As for electronic or synthesised music, what is real? What is the real sound of the Beatles experimental music or Phil Spectors “wall of sound� It does not exist in real life.

Steven

 

On recording classicaly music.

From somebody whos classical music collection consists of about 30 titles I'll add that little caveat straight away.


I wonder at the significance of the miking arrangement in the recording of classical music.

Recording a 3 or 4 piece band, you are effectively miking each instrument with one or more microphones. Each player may be in their own soundbooth.

With classical, the orchestra will not (this MUST be correct) have a microphone or more per instrument.

Additionally, each musician will not be in a sound booth, they will be sat right next to each other.

Could it be then a mixture of miking an ensemble en masse with a smaller number of microphones, and sound bleeding in to each microphone from a glut of instruments that produces this significant difference from the live event?

Perhaps our ears are not convinced by the miking and recording of classical music by traditional methods...

It makes me wonder if recording an orchestra in seperate sound booths with individual mikes, and perhaps phones on them so they are in time with the orchestra is something thats ever been attempted...


I'll finish waffling..............now.
Chris