Musicians in your living room vs. you in the recording hall?


When it comes to imaging, soundstage and mimicking a recorded presentation, which do you prefer?
Do you want to hear musicians in your living room, or do you want to be transported to the space where the musicians were?
erik_squires
My system is capable of both. I want both, depending on what the musicians and engineers intended. An example of 'up close and personal' is Radiohead's recording of 'King of Limbs', a live recording done in The Basement, with just the band and engineers.
My system is capable of transporting me through an obelisk and across the universe to a room where time warps until I grow old and die and am reborn as a star child.
@glupson Concerts, classical music, are not hi-fi. It is much more bland. Two Bluetooth speakers ran by an iPod are more "exciting". 

Over the years, I've gone to and enjoyed, in various ways, many live performances, in about every genre and every venue - large and small. While many, probably wouldn't check all the boxes of being an audiophiles idea of acoustic bliss, I don't believe I've found any to be bland and all to be considerably more engaging than anything from an I phone through a small set of blue tooth speakers.  
Even Live Rock Concerts, even though loud and a bit hectic, can be quite engaging.  
Of all, I most enjoyed over the years, small venue performances featuring live acoustic instruments.
Now, in my senior years, I prefer to be at home where I can (with my feet up and a cold beer or glass of chilled wine) enjoy, to a large extent, the ambiance, fulness, timber and stage of such performances, without the crowds and head numbing volume that is a basic part of most live events.

As far as enjoying a great performance in the recording studio - it would be a great educational opportunity, but (except for the rare and few actual - in studio, live band recordings or live at event - bring the  studio to the performance recordings) most recordings at the studio are mixed, dubbed, mastered and edited, with most performers not even there at the same time. It would sound nothing like what you would hear on the final recorded cut. 

Jim
Jim,

Like you, I disagree with glupson on this issue. Probably more strenuously.


For me live music is anything but bland in character. Just the opposite, I’m usually overwhelmed by how much richer live music is than any home stereo system produces. An orchestra through any pair of speakers I’ve heard, no matter how expensive, is homogenized relative to the scope of timbral beauty in the real thing.

In fact, I have found even live amplified sound can often sound richer and better than anything I’ve heard from an audiophile sound system, so long as the equipment used is good.

When I played in a band we used to use a really nice sound system and even my keyboards had such attach and sonic richness through the sound system. Same went for the drums, or guitar etc. None of our recordings played back on even the best speakers I had truly re-created this. It was always a disappointment to here the recordings, vs the live sound.   That’s the same for a great many live shows I’ve attended - not necessarily the massive stadium shows, but in a reasonably sized venue - a decent concert hall for instance - the sound was amazing. I’m thinking of a Pat Metheny concert where I was just glorying in the kaleidoscope of sound coming at me live - nothing on record ever touched it.




Glubson, sadly perhaps, is difficult to take seriously. Rock music is all distortion to begin with? Cut me some slack, Jack! Earth to Glubson! 👩‍🚀