A high end system should do its best to recreate the original recording event. Take any MA recording. Different venues from around the world with no two sounding the same. Tons of ambience, decay and air are common themes in all MA recordings yet they never sound the same since the sites are all different.
A great high end system will allow each such recording to have its own unique sound. A room does influence the sound but even an average room should be able to allow the different sounds that a high end system can reproduce. I am one who feels that room interaction is further down the list than most (that is for another thread).
If your system can recreate that "you are there" effect or "they are here" effect, then you are knocking on high ends door. Just don't expect this effect all the time since most recordings aren't made that well. A resolving, high end system will accurately reproduce a studio setting as well as an outdoor or esoteric setting but lots of those clues are limited or truncated by the studio, compromised, if you will.
Everyone here has had those "you are there/they are here" moments. We all scratch our heads as to why it doesn't do it all the time. It's the recording that's limiting your pleasure. Once you've experienced those feelings, stop messing around with your system and concentrate on better recordings.
You can't make a silk purse out of a pigs ear.
All the best,
Nonoise |
Great point Mapman. I listen in the nearfield, allowing the illusion of virtually any perspective, according to scale, to sound convincing. Smaller, recorded venues come off more convincingly but the larger ones satisfy as well.
It also helps to turn off the analytical part of my brain when the spatial cues are convincing enough to warrant pleasure for pleasures sake. Imagination takes over and abets the process (the crime being believing something that is not).
I've also heard a better system in a larger, treated room pull it off much more convincingly. I wish I had that bigger, dedicated room to try it. It's all a trick, of sorts, and the better ones are more adept at pulling it off.
Most times, the less tricks used in a recording are the easiest to reproduce in the listening area.
All the best,
Nonoise |
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Spot on about how the highs and lows grab you when you first enter a "high end" showroom. It's akin to what you see when evaluating TVs: settings that look great but permanently burn out the rods and cones in the back of your eye if you look long enough.
On another thread I stated just how much I'm now enjoying my CDP just by swapping out some ICs. Enough to stop listening to my iMac. All the little things you allude to besides the highs and lows that grab your attention come into play now. Gone is the indistinct, the vague, the missing, replaced by all the pertinent cues that make it seem all the more realistic. My speaker 'seems' to go lower though I know it doesn't. It just now has all the cues necessary to complete the picture of an upright bass, realistically.
Ambient cues like hands gently tapping and strumming along on instruments,
musicians preparing to play as they adjust their hands on their instruments, entering lightly before playing forcefully. There are times now where I swear I can almost discern body language or position as they play.
Spooky times indeed.
I've gotten to where, due to my listening room, I prefer these type of cues and sounds to whether or not I have that giant recreation of an orchestra's venue. Even from an orchestra, one can catch these kinds of cues, making it more convincing, for me. The rest I can fill out in my mind, overlooking the obvious.
All the best,
Nonoise |
Maybe an expensive stereo is supposed to sound like your monies loss is your ears gain.
There is no answer save the one that makes you happy carping about it. Cost relative to enjoyment is always thought of by those of us who can't afford an expensive system while those who can afford it probably don't give a tinker's fart about it.
They just went out and bought what they think they should have at the same kind of emporium that sells them their kind of car, glasses, spirits, cigars, clothing, watches, etc.
They don't shop in the same places that average people do and I bet their systems, on average, probably don't sound much better (if at all) then one of our well sorted out ones.
All the best,
Nonoise |
As has been pointedly pointed out, live music is the reference for all things audio. Hopefully, during the recording process that live reference is adhered to.
Once the recording is made, it becomes, de facto, the only reference we have.
Keeping that in mind, that recording can only sound so good and all your hifi stereo has to do is faithfully reproduce what the recording engineers had in mind.
It's sad that we are prisoners to the whims of engineers and market forces, limiting the potential that lies in that CD, LP or download.
I don't think we give our stereo systems enough credit for what they do. We constantly upgrade, fiddle and tweak and it brings to mind what the dragon sees when it's chasing its tail: a fleeting image, a moving target that looks different every time he turns his head around.
All the best,
Nonoise |
I only started about half a year ago to help me get to sleep due to a shoulder injury. All I can take is about two fingers and I'm done for the night. About twice a week does it for me. I just can't stand taking medications.
Apparently you have a good supply of gifts for the foreseeable future.
All the best,
Nonoise |
Great conversation we are having here.
May I add this?
This neutrality we are talking about, ie: the absence of audible inaccuracies, be it captured at the live event, at the recorded event, or at the listener event (our system), can be ascertained better than we give our senses credit for.
All of our lives are spent honing these senses so it becomes second nature. Evolution has its advantages: it works.. Our aural memories are, I feel, much more accurate than we give them credit for.
I've always taken exception to reviewers who qualify a review with the caveat that it's been too long for a valid comparison when we've always used memory sensed events to make opinions. Why stop with audio? (maybe as a basis for an argument?) I feel most reviewers don't want to be held liable for a variety of reasons (you said this, now that) yet they can always be counted on to wax poetically over an older system they had, how they should have kept it, etc.
Therefore, I feel that we can know (recognize) accuracy when we hear it. When it's real enough to make us stop and take notice, to look over there, to visualize the event, to sit transfixed, spellbound, or hooked for the moment.
Doubting Thomas we should not be. The neutrality we are hearing is there. The frustrating thing is the differing amounts of neutrality we hear. The clues and cues are there, in one form or another, both in amounts small and large. It's just that the entire event isn't entirely neutral (I believe that to be impossible) which adds to frustration and doubt, and leads us to tinker, tweak and upgrade.
Certainty aside, I'm certain of this. :-)
All the best,
Nonoise |
Understood.
I've read where Steve Hoffman stated that old master tapes that were made off of tube equipment cannot be simply remastered with silicon based equipment. It will not sound right. Various types of software has to be used. And it has to be done right, according to what the engineer thinks is right.
The best we can do, being laymen, is be as true to the recording as possible, recreating it as accurately as possible. That is not to say that we can't recognize when something is right, or accurate or neutral sounding, based on our memories, faulty as they are said to be.
Manipulation can work if intended and done properly. I don't believe that's the intention of the recording engineer and another story.
But to recall or recognize when something is accurate, based on memory, should be easy enough. A recording of a lion, behind me, wouldn't scare me but a real one, not heard decades ago, would make me sh*t my pants.
Trying to convince others here that what we are hearing is where the rubber misses the road. I still say that there are enough good examples of neutrality that get through on a recording to make it convincing.
All the best,
Nonoise |
Clear as an unmuddied lake, clear as a sky of azure blue (loved A Clockwork Orange).
Very few recordings go for the real, live event. Even those that are sold as live.
All that mixing and effects introduced to what the engineer, artist or label is after. Esoteric labels like MA and Mapleshade, which use minimalist recording techniques, come to mind and there are others that can be used as a reference of sorts.
I remember back when I got my Legacy Classics. The owner of the pair I auditioned knew Steve Hoffman and he had a copy of a Nat King Cole CD that was mastered incorrectly. Hoffman did it as real as possible and the CD came out only to be pulled from the shelves by the Nat King Cole estate since they had to have a certain amount of reverb in them. That CD made it sound like Nat was in the room with you. The one with the reverb didn't. Boy did I try to find a copy of that CD.
All the best,
Nonoise |
Very fair, indeed.
The times when it sounds real don't happen as often as we'd like so one must revel in the throes when in its presence, knowing it's fleeting at best.
More wine?
All the best,
Nonoise |
Very fair, indeed.
The times when it sounds real don't happen as often as we'd like so one must revel in the throes when in its presence, knowing it's fleeting at best.
More wine?
All the best,
Nonoise |
Sorry about the double post!
I don't know how it happened. |
Stereo replay never actually reproduces a musical event.
The only thing you can hope for is a credible illusion.
But it can be a very nice illusion.
----Bruno Putzeys
Rok2id,
I've also had the pleasure of someone thinking there was a live event at my place with the window open or the door ajar. Not all the time, usually a solo instrument (guitar, piano) and the grin on my face was priceless.
All the best,
Nonoise |
I like Onhwy61s take on it. It's a different angle but it does address the OPs original ruminations. One needn't have an expensive, high end system to feel the soul of the music.
Audiophile issues aside, the emotional response one gets from a song or piece of music is independent of the quality of the gear.
Granted, a highly resolving system is most welcome and would be icing on the cake and we can all agree that once you've heard better, going back is hard. But is it necessary? No.
All the best,
Nonoise |
Mrtennis, true.
We all got into this hobby just for the enjoyment of being able to enjoy music for musics sake.
It's only when we learned of better ways to achieve that goal that led us down the path of our present condition.
All the best,
Nonoise |
Ozfly,
I'd like to tackle your last question re: improving sonics in a system and is it independent of the emotional response, and I'll keep it short. :-)
In my experience, there is a certain amount of joy (Eureka!) when one element of my system takes me higher, closer to that elusive goal of audio nirvana.
That joy is not a constant. It increases along the lines of the hardware improvement and if it's a big enough improvement, the amount of joy I experience can be of a larger amount relative to the former.
It can cure me of my Quixotic endeavors for that last level of improvement that when reached, allows me to simply enjoy the music. I know when I reach it as days, weeks, months will go by and I'm still captivated by what I hear.
It only takes a few bad recordings to make me think that something was overlooked, wrong or missed but when a great recording is used, I'm reassured I made the right choice. There is some lessening of that joy factor when my system can't make every recording sound wonderful but it's only temporary since I also realize that they're just lousy recordings.
That, I believe, is the basis for our addiction in this hobby. It's not the quick fix or endomorphic high we can get from our fast pace, ever changing times which I, for one, am not a part of. Call me old school, better tempered, more disciplined, but the reward factor is still there and like when I correctly repaired an old car for my Dad, back in the days, there was that sense of joy and achievement. Such is the nature of our slow paced hobby and maybe the answer as to why participation is down these days as our youth are out for that quick fix, but that is for another thread.
All the best,
Nonoise |
So, we hear things differently despite similar backgrounds, tastes, interests and all of this with the same appreciation, similar levels of equipment, and a similar quest for the best, be it through better recordings or equipment upgrades.
Yet, for all the similarities, we hear differently due to tastes, interests, equipment and a longing for something better be it through a recording or equipment upgrade.
Makes sense to me. :-)
All the best,
Nonoise |
Same here as well. I think that when we hear more of the music being played, we're simply taking in more info as there is more to the beginning and end of each note, making it seem longer when in fact the same amount of time passes but we absorb more, process more, appreciate more and since we are used to a particular piece of music, it begs comparison.
If one were to time a particular piece of music and then go back and add more instrumental playing, in the same time frame, I think it would have the same effect. We'd be processing more info, or in the case of hearing a recording better, that subtle effect would give the same results.
Or something like that.
All the best,
Nonoise |
Whart,
Exactly. Stridency, no. Decay (back end of wave), yes. The more complete the notes, in a musical piece, the more to appreciate.
The only analogous thing I can come up with at the moment is when one is looking at a stream. One can see the whole stream as it rushes (or meanders) past. When the waters clear, one can now see the bottom better. One can also see the streams edge as it works its way around, under and through the lands edges. Swirls and eddies are more apparent. There's more texture, fleeting as it is, to the water, what with reflections from the sun and air currents massaging its surface.
This stream is still traveling at the same speed but once the water is cleared of impurities, there is so much more to take in. It's not sensory overload but rather a better appreciation that uses more of ones mind to soak it all up.
It's that appreciation factor that makes thing seem to slow down as we're now using more than a base sensory input. It's beyond instinctual input as we're not dodging predators or looking for food. It uses a deeper part of our brain which we've honed through time with our relations to others, be it intimate, sports related, even culinary based (here's to another sense).
I'd even go so far as to say that all of our senses work this way and we take it for granted or chalk it up to something else specific to what we're doing at the time. That is what makes this hobby so wonderful for us and a complete mystery to those who don't take the time to listen to what we do.
All the best,
Nonoise |
Bryon,
No, your ears are not crazy. You posted before I did so I thought I'd relieve you of any vestige of doubt as to your sanity, here.
All the best,
Nonoise |
