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I get 70 of the Live Symphony Experience at home

I am starting this thread as an offshoot of another thread in which I was assured many experts insist that the best home systems can only reproduce about 10-15% of the live concert hall experience. This seems preposterous to me, and I wanted to explore it more, and hear how the experts make this claim. My take:
While it is clear that no system really reproduces the concert hall (or even tougher, the organ-in-a-cathedral)experience, a good system will let you follow the melody and rhythm of a piece, will let you identify and differentiate instruments from one another, will give you an idea of how many instruments are playing and where in the hall they are located, as well as some sense of the size of the hall. A powerful dynamic system will also let you feel some of the excitement created by a big symphonic crescendo. It will approximate, to a degree, the richness and silkiness of instruments so that if you know what they really sound like, you can, in your head, remember what that sound is. I think this is certainly more than 10% of the concert experience. What is missing? The sudden plop and decay of a pizzicato violin string? The barely audible but terrifying roll of a bass drum as it sneaks up behind other instruments? The silky sheen of bowed strings and the well-oiled burnished sound of brass? Yes, all of these things are important and missing, but do they make up 90% of the music? If so, WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO GIVE UP THE 10% YOU HAVE FOR THE 90% YOU'RE MISSING? Then what would you have? The sense of sitting in a big hall, with some cool ethereal sounds from instruments that you can't identify? The sound of musicians tuning up before the music starts? Would you really give up all other recorded music to hear John Cage's Silent Symphony perfectly reproduced in your living room? I certainly wouldn't.
Maybe I misunderstand. Is it that going from an ordinary system to a mega-buck high end system only gets you 10% closer? This I could accept.
It is senseless to quibble over small numerical differences (10%vs.15%), but any number in that range is saying we are missing a lot more music than we are getting, and this I can not agree with. Block out 90% of a photograph, and you probably won't be able to identify its subject.
I'm usually a pretty calm person, but this has just driven me crazy. Let me know what you think.
honest1
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mount_rose_music's avatar
mount_rose_music
116 posts
 
Well, it depends on which 90% of the experience you are speaking of. If we are speaking of the guy next to me talking on his cellphone, overpriced crap wine, impossible parking, and waaay too long lines at the bathroom, and the incessant phone calls asking for money or renewals, then I must agree.

If we are speaking of the gestalt of the music however, I beg to differ. There are only really three things I feel I am missing with my system as configured lately:

1. Every home stereo I have ever had or heard has congested somewhat vs a live orchestra, considering we are using two speakers vs a full orchestra, well I guess laws of physics prevail.... hmmm.... maybe if I buy 105 gallo nucleus', make my own studio recordings......?

2. I do feel that tympanies and harps are not near as realistic as they could be. Having said that, all other instruments I can think of are very very realistic. I still get the trumpet "blatt", I get the overtones of the violin, etc.

3. I feel that although the width of the soundstage exceeds the outer edge of the speakers, it is not as wide as a concert hall... and again, unless I had a room as big as a concert hall, who's surprised?

Against the above, I get at least the feel of the size of the hall, I get to hear into the recording, I get better wine, no bathroom line, and sometimes spooky real sound. I vote for at least 80 percent of the feel of a live show, and if you factor in being "green" by using no fossil fuel, I figure I am at a 100% in a different way:)

Cheers,
Chris
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uru975
684 posts
 
Wish I could recall the source but memory, or what's left of it says it was either a record producer or an analogue designer said that at best we get 10-15% of what's on the source. Just another example of the best is yet to come.
newbee
4,751 posts
 
When I go to a concert at Symphony Hall I get 100% of a live music experience. Good enuf for me.

When I go into my music room and crank up the audio system I get 100% of a recorded music 'experience', at least within the capabilities of my set up to reproduce the recording. Good enuf for me.

Lets see, 100% live, 100% recorded, equals 200% music experience. Wow, how lucky can I be? :-)
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,467 posts
 
I am not sure where this came from but yes it is true that only a fraction of the music sounds like live and it is two factors

1) Dynamic range of most home systems are sadly limited
2) Dynamic range of recordings are almost all compressed to suit 1) above.

The rare occurrence when the source music has realistic dynamic range and when it is played on a system that can actually reproduce it without distortion is indeed well below 10% of even high end audio. The lack of dynamic range is usually a dead give away that it is not live...even on such high end systems where timbrel accuracy can be near perfect (at low volumes).
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
i'll go with 10 %. what is especially missing in the timbral accuracy of instruments at a live performance. the recording doesn't help you capture the naturalness of timbre and then the stereo system adds its "errors".

i think one should accept the deficiencies and go on from there.

getting 10 % or less, depending upon the quality of the reproduction (e.g., a table radio) should not stop you from listening to symphonies at home. you can certainly enjoy the music even if the sound is not of high quality.

people listened to music on "lo fi systems" over 60 years ago and did not complain.
honest1 OP
586 posts
 
If you strip away 90% of the timbral accuracy of an instrument, what are you left with? A fundamental frequency and some discordant buzzing? Every instrument would sound like a test tone or worse. We can easily hear 5% Harmonic distortion - what would a system with 90% harmonic distortion sound like? You would not be able to recognize a single instrument. Mathematically, if timbral accuracy is what's missing most, you would have even less than 10% timbral accuracy in order to average out to 10% overall musical content.
I agree with Shadorne - dynamic range is definitely lacking in just about every system and recording. Is this what people mean? I could perhaps believe that we are only getting 10% of the dynamic range of much music.
schipo
1,268 posts
 
The live experience should always be experienced by all, and not compared to a canned sound coming form our stereos.I have when living in NYC gone to the Met and NYC opera along with Lincoln center and numourous recitals. I have enjoyed all and not wanting any more from my stereo when coming home. Live always was more entertaining with watching attractive ladies in their fashionable clothing to just the waiting for the curtain to rise and clasping hands with my date that night made many a night always unforgetable and memorable. I believe this is all part of hearing a live performance while enjoying a once in a life time interpertation.
sogood51
2,157 posts
 
Listening rooms are small spaces, live are large spaces. The two are nothing a like. The components we audiophiles use are designed for small space use.

You would "not" enjoy a live band in your living room for very long. {It would be one hell of a party though!}

Dave
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,137 posts
 
I'm not going to argue about the specific percentage, but are you ever really fooled into believing you're hearing a real orchestra in a hall? If your system can really achieve 70% of the live experience does that mean that for more than 2 out of 3 times you can't tell the difference? I think that it's possible for a home system to near fully reproduce the sound of a recording of one or two instruments made in a domestic sized room, but it's currently impossible to get the full sound. let alone the experience, of an orchestra in a hall reproduced in your living room. 10% is being generous.
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
they don't call it recorded music for nuthin'
honest1 OP
586 posts
 
Onhwy61 - That is a different way of interpreting the percentage than I was thinking. If you mean how many songs do I hear that are perfectly reproduced, then I would say you are correct, 10% would be generous - I would say 0 would be closer to the truth. I was looking at it differently, though. If a perfect reproduction of a live concert was 100%, and something that didn't even sound like a live concert was 0% (say standing in the middle of a busy sheet metal shop), then something that more closely resembled the live concert would be a percentage between 0 and 100. For example, if you went to the live concert but were wearing earplugs and noise cancelling headphones, you might hear 60% of the sound of the concert. Another way of looking at it is if you were looking at a picture, then covered 90% of the picture with white paint, you would only see 10% of the picture, and probably wouldn't be able to recognize much. Using this approach, I don't see how anyone can say we are missing so much of the music.
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