Question on ‘how do we listen’

Has anyone tried Binaural recordings on headphones? I have not, but have always wondered how they sound.

 

A friend of mine made some binaural recordings to minidisc using a sort of waxy dummy head with mics in its ears. Spookily realistic.

PS. Unfortunately of course the realism extended to the coughing, bumshifting and sweet wrapper rattling of the audience.

 

Quite.... that is one of the reasons why I often prefer listening at home than at a live classical concert, which tend to be full of bronchial jewellery rattling twitchers. Unless its a very good performance that can transcend these distractions.

 

7V, greg and PeteH have it about right.

I do a lot of singing, primarily with chamber choirs, and whenever I get the chance during a rehearsal (when I'm not supposed to be rehearsing) I will sit in as many places as I can in the auditorium, as well my seat in the Tenors, (typically, I'll close my eyes) and listen to the sounds, detail, imaging etc. as we have all learned to do when communing with the spirit of our hifi/HOBBY. And I've sung for recordings and broadcasts as well as the live audience

One of my favourite local auditoriums is the Bridgewater Hall (I perform there about a dozen times a year) and on Sunday morning I was singing live on Radio 4's Sunday Worship from Emannuel Church, Didsbury, listening carefully ... And my son was in the congregation (of 3) before we went off to the Manchester hifi show to listen to lots of hifi I love seeing what the sound engineers have done with mike placement and listening to the end result.

Anyway, the point(s) of all this. In my opinion/experience...

In a live performance, the brain recognises the distance from the source of sound and compensates its interpretation of the signal so that what it hears sounds "right" for the acoustic it's in. You are always conscious of sound coming from all around you - probably most obvious in a highly reverberent acoustic, eg church with organ/brass. One of the most impressive sounds I ever heard was the 6foot diameter bass drum in the Dies Irae from Verdi's Requiem, in Kings College Chapel, Cambridge - classical rock music; there's no subtlety to what Verdi intended - and with something like a 4 second decay to the sound. Wonderful to hear while you were there, but I don't think there's any way you would want to hear the equivalent recording without the performers being brought up in the mix relative to the reverbaration.

Soloists often disappear beneath the rest of the parts, but part of that is that the accompanists haven't got the balance right (ie. they're too loud) and the other is that that's what the composer intends. On the other hand, why do Wagnerian Sopranos sound like that? because that's the only way they can produce a sound which stands half a chance of getting over the top of the orchestra and filling a large auditorium. Oh, and the vibrato helps you hear them, because it both increases the volume of the sound produced and the ever moving frequency means you don't confuse a single/pure tone with the sound of another instrument.

Probably the only place you'll get a stereo image (breadth, pin-point location) similar to a recording/hifi is if you stand less than 12' behind the conductor (or preferably in place of the conductor). Think about it. In a typical hifi listening postion, the speakers will form an angle of about 30degrees from your listening position. In a concert hall, a full orchestra may only span an angle of 5-10degrees.

So to hifi. Of course the positioning and detail is an important measure of the accuracy of the system. Fundamentally it is the system's job to accurately reproduce the recording, not to compensate for the recording. The ear/brain is capable of determining postion and detail with surprising resolution, and ear/brain will detect the accuracy and phase information provided by a good system. Whether the recorded signal is realistic isn't the system's fault. However, it may also be that "compensating" for the recording will create a more realistic "as live" reproduction

You seldom get as much treble information live as you do on a recording (because you're too far away). Major exception is a symbal. Sound of finger sliding down wire-wound guitar strings? You'll only get that from an acoustic if you stick your head next to the fretboard.

I found it fascinating when listening to the imaging of a friend's Quad II/22 amps how they generated this wonderfully Lilliputian sound stage - a scale model of the band/orchestra in my room. Not realistic in that sense, but still delightful.

Binaural recordings? Some years ago (back in the 70's?) the BBC did some broadcasts with binaural recordings. Fascinating, but for exactly the reasons Uncle A alluded to I suspect they either used binaural for the ambient sounds and close(r) miking for the main sounds, or they were very conscious of just how close the dummy head had to be to the main subject.

One of my biggest disappointments with the (classical) recording process is the lack of emotion, performance and spontaineity on the final recording. You go for the 1st take, give it everything you've got and then get told that there's imprecision on a partivular consonant, or whatever. So by the 5th take and by the time every phrase has been chopped apart you're going for safety and precision and not performance

Moving further off topic, the contrast between what I heard 1st thing on Sunday morning and later that day makes me believe I seldom hear "hifi" that truly sounds like the original instuments. There was a demo of Digital Audio's Hailey speakers which was sadly lacking in music, but was reproducing some surprisingly realistic individual instruments. And the Origin Live system which was described by the rep as "a bit bright" was unlistenable. I've come to believe that the euphamisms "dynamic" "good with rock" mean that the system adds the same distortion as you're used to with stage amplifiers. I've spent years standing next to the brass and percussion sections and wil seldom (have never?) heard in real life the treble distortions that I hear from some of the "best" hifis. The Chord/Spendor system was simply distorted and unrealistic to my ears when I went into their demo room. Most stuff is artifically bright (or maybe... the demon CD :JPS: screws up any chance of realistic music)


Anyway, enough of this rambling. Not as coherent a response as I probably intended - I'm sure there were observations I meant to add that have been omitted and definitely things I mentioned that are of no relevence - but I was up working all last night and brain, vocabulary and fingers are not in perfect synchronisation this evening.

zzzz......

 

I think so, partly because I don't think you can produce a system which is reliably more faithful to the original experience than the recording is, given the variation between recordings.

 

Have just been reading this thread and a recent article in “professional audio†sprang to mind with regard to a review on some monitors and there perceived brightness, I must admit ever since I read it I have been very conscious of natural sounds and how bright and hard they are, which went on to remind me of the old mags of the 70's and the if you don't have the same gear as they do (in the studio) you cant hear how its supposed to sound, well who's fidelity is it any way, I don't expect a piano to sound stage or any other instrument off a sound board and there is no way I could play it at that volume at home let alone a drum kit,(always amazed how many left handed ones there are) my little brother used to play both and I didn't realize how loud the are until I have tried to speak to somebody when standing next to them, remember the old test records and “you will need a set of keys a wine glass etc†nothing sounds close in realty not even those huge JBL's I heard a few years ago at a London show ,and I don't care I only worry that in future it will be all miked for multi channel , I have heard it said that stereo can take away from the recording I wouldn't disagree in some cases.

Stuart

 

More and more I'd love to run a hifi listening session where real instruments are used as the benchmark. Simple and readily available - voice, guitar, cymbal, snare/kick drum

 

For a well recorded and musically interesting album may I suggest From The Caves Of The Iron Mountain complete with honking geese in a cave.

 

Not only is it mastered by Bob Ludwig but it has duck and geese management by Lorna Tychostup!! That looks liek a very interesting CD I will have a look for it next time I am in the record shop. do you think HMV would have it?

 

Quoting one of their CD inserts:

These guys/gals attach a great deal of significance to the sound-stage - laterally, vertically and depthwise. The liner note to the first track on the CD of theirs that I own (recorded in a "big church") states:

"Just imagine being at a concert given by twelve wind players in a big church! That will be exactly your experience in this recording: a big, full-bodied and very open timbre with a clearly defined stereo image, from the flutes on the left to the bassons on the right, but also with a pronounced perspective - we want you to hear just where the church walls are!".

.........now you skeptics out there are going to chime: "it's a good thing that they've got such detailed liner notes - or that $30 CD wouldn't sound nearly as good!". Having carefully read all of the liner notes (), and having critically listened to the CD over and over again, I can unequivocally say that these folks make realistic recordings. Whether the stereo image is artifice, or a real capturing of the acoustic space (as they profess), doesn't matter to me. I can get lost in the music, and that's enough.

 

I listen to the music,and in 30 years of doing so I have never once thought to myself 'the imaging or soundstage sounds very poor',it just hasn't happened

 

Order it direct from Global Discipline. They are the Mangement Company for the likes of Levin, King Crimson etc and are there to support the artist rather than bleed them dry i.e. the musicians get the benefit of the sale

 

I'm pretty sure that they would use two mics when recording. Otherwise there recordings would be in mono.

They may well use the two mics in a simple crossed configuration at a single location.

This is the best way to record but for the majority of recordings, is not practical. Nevertheless, companies like Opus3 at least have a realization of the deterioration that can arise from the generally used method of multiple close mics and mixers.

Simple is generally better if it's possible.

 

You've never listened to early sixties stereo recordings then? Early Beatles tracks are a prime example of bad imaging.

Seriously though, if the soundstage and imaging doesn't bother you why not go for a mono set-up?

You can save by only needing one power amp and loudspeaker. The single speaker can be larger (as you only need space for one) and you can get a far better bass response.

Worth thinking about?

 

Would you say that this also goes for amplifiers?

I have no understanding of how an amplifier affects these things, but I am led to believe it does.

 

Yes, but to a lesser extent.

Me neither.

 

Steve,

my amp goes mono when i need it

seriously,it never bothers me,I can't change the way they recorded early beatles lps so why think about it?

I think this is an interstesting thread for a forum but it has no relevance to how you listen unless you are prepare to constantly change your gear and even then its room and recording specific

 

Hmm. There's a few things do bother me a bit. Like my copy of Chuck Berry in London on Chess - lovely recording quality, great ambience, disastrous ping pong stereo mix. Chucks voice far left ... and his guitar far right. Maybe if I didn't know it was Chuck playing the thing, I wouldn't find it so annoying. A classic example of when I wished my amp had a mono button.

 

The relevance is in the original post:

Figuring out how you listen at home relates directly to what you want your system to do at home; and if you don't know what you want it to do how do you go about achieving it?
If you have got all this figured then congratulations, you have my respect and admiration.

As to room and recording specific gear - surely we all do this, but from the opposite side, ie. chosing what to listen to on the main system as opposed to car/work/ipod/kitchen/beach whatever, simillarly with vinyl or cd (where both are present) - matching music to environment/context.

 

yes I have it figured,i just put the music on and enjoy,worrying about things in magazines I know little about isn't a route I will go down.I can understand others ding so though,they are lucky enough to have heard enough sysyems to relate to these strange hifi terms