What is a high end stereo SUPPOSED to sound like?

Wow Cdc, I bet that guy's system sounds fantastic!

Hi guys - I wanted to chime in on the conversation about recording spaces for a moment that Bryon and Mapman are having. I don't think that anyone has made the point here that one would almost never want their music to sound like the actual recording space, if we are assuming that this space is a recording studio. These are very dead environments that do not enhance the music whatsoever, meaning how the music actually sounds in that space as it is actually being played. What these types of rooms do enhance is the recording engineer's ability to make the recording sound exactly how he wants it to (which very often has nothing to do with how the musicians want it to sound, by the way). This point we have discussed on other threads, but it is certainly applicable here.

A related point, which has also been discussed on other threads, is that in general, musicians normally choose fidelity to the performance vs. fidelity to the recording of that performance (a whole bunch of recordings out there really suck, even if the performances are excellent, and why the heck would you want to be faithful to such a recording??). I think Elizabeth touches on this when she speaks of "slighty euphonic coloring." Most musicians want their systems to sound as lifelike as possible (timbres first and foremost), as opposed to trying to eliminate all "distortions." A whole lot of folks who attempt to do the latter end up with systems that throw the baby out with the bathwater, or lose the forest for the trees. Neither the recording nor the system it is played back on will ever be an exact match to the performance, as others have correctly pointed out here.

NoNoise summed up what we all wish was the case nicely: "live music is the reference for all things audio. Hopefully, during the recording process that live reference is adhered to."

Unfortunately, this is almost never the case, and most audiophiles have no idea just how much this reference is totally ignored by most recording engineers, even when they are recording a live performance in an excellent hall.

Mapman, you have hit the nail on the head with your last post. Everyone (not just the recording engineers) has their own idea of what the "absolute sound," or whatever you want to call it, is; in many cases, this has absolutely nothing to do with how music actually sounds in a real performance space.

Same thing goes for the concept of "neutrality" as applied to audio reproduction equipment, despite many very fine attempts to define this concept on this board, notably by Bryon Cunningham. Equipment designers do almost always have a very specific sound in mind for their equipment. Who is to say which is more "neutral?" This judgment will of course be heavily influenced by what one's concept of the "absolute sound" is. Since this concept cannot be exactly defined, "neutrality" cannot either.

This is not to say these concepts are irrelevant, but to say that they are relevant only to how each individual listener (or those having the exact same preferences) defines them for themselves.

Hi guys - some great comments. A couple more of my own, in response.

Bryon wrote: "Admittedly, these two kinds of accuracy are different, but they have something important in common: They both require the listener to compare what he hears to SOMETHING UNKNOWN. " One of these kinds of accuracies Bryon mentioned was "Accuracy of the RECORDING relative to the LIVE EVENT."

My comment on this is that in many cases (though of course not all), for a performing musician, unlike for the vast majority of listeners, this accuracy is NOT an unknown. This ties in with some of Onhwy61's comments: "To state the obvious, a highly skilled person will have more informed insights than a lay person. At the same time it is still just speculation and even highly skilled engineers or listeners can be wrong about what is going on in a recording." One can easily add the performers to that list.

I would also agree with Nonoise and Mapman when they say that many listeners do underestimate their ability to remember what things sound like, especially when one tries very consciously to make this effort (for instance, attending a concert live in a hall in which you have some recordings of, and then listening to the recordings afterwards to compare).

That said, another point I wanted to comment on - first, my comments that Bryon quoted for reference:

NoNoise summed up what we all wish was the case nicely: "live music is the reference for all things audio. Hopefully, during the recording process that live reference is adhered to."

Unfortunately, this is almost never the case, and most audiophiles have no idea just how much this reference is totally ignored by most recording engineers, even when they are recording a live performance in an excellent hall.

Bryon wrote:
I agree with these comments. The observation I'd like to make is that these comments assume that recordings can be judged on the basis of their accuracy.

Though I understand the point you are making in your post, I would certainly quibble with this statement a little. My position would be that a recording can never truly capture a live event, so therefore it would never be completely accurate, which is why "neutrality" is a very subjective concept, not an absolute. As I said before, this does not mean it is not a useful concept, for an individual listener.

The point I was trying to make is that many audiophiles assume that most engineers are indeed trying to exactly recapture a live event, when in fact, the vast majority would not even think of trying - it wouldn't even occur to them. Their goal is to make their recordings "sound good." Especially with the digitally done recording nowadays, all sorts of alterations (such as added reverb, to name one of the most common) are routinely made even to recordings done in the finest of acoustic environments. No two engineers would make recordings that sounded alike of the same live event. Judging which one came closer to the actual sound between two excellent ones would be very subjective - there are simply far too many variables involved, which different people will rank differently in their priorities.

I don't write anywhere near as clearly as Bryon, but hopefully the above is reasonably clear.