2. music
  3. 182335-171283

Solving the "complex music problem"?

I have noticed that, regardless of the system, simple music (i.e. music with only a few sounds at the same time, such as a solo instrument) sounds way better than what I'll call here "complex music", meaning music like symphony that has a lot of instruments all playing different sounds at the same time. I'm assuming that this is an inherent problem for audio equipment. In a live symphony, you might have, say, 15 different unique instruments (i.e. counting all the violins as 1 unique instrument), each of which is vibrating in a different way; but in a speaker, each driver might be trying to reproduce 10 of those sounds at the same time. So each driver is a single physical object trying to vibrate in 10 different ways at the same time. The result is that the music sounds muddy, all the different parts blend together and you lose a lot of the detail.

I have a number of questions about this that I'm hoping all you experts can help me with.

1. Is there an established name or term for this issue? 

2. Do you think my diagnosis of the problem above is correct? Or is something else going on?

3. Although this is always a problem, it's a much bigger problem on some systems than others. Are there some types of components, or some brands, that are particularly good (or bad) when it comes to this issue?

4. To what extent is this issue related to the components you have as compared to speaker placement and room acoustics?

5. To me, this is a huge issue. But I don't see it discussed all that often. Why do you think that is? Or, perhaps, it is being discussed all the time, but people are using a term I don't recognize? (hence question 1).  

 

Full disclosure, I asked a related question under the heading "need amp recommendations for more separation of instruments" and got a lot of super helpful responses. I'm very grateful to everyone who took the time to respond there. That discussion was focused on a solution to my particular problem. Here I'm hoping to have a more general discussion of the issue. I know it's bad form to post the same question twice, but in my mind, this is a significantly different question. Thanks.

ahuvia
Post removed 
kota1
2,706 posts
 

@asctim

And hugely important, at least for me, is anything you can do to improve the apparent width and clarity of the stereo soundstage.

This is why I posted that article re: Tomlinson Holman. His research shows that wide channels are more important than height channels. They need to be at 60 degree angles and then WOW, soundstage that is just amazing.

You mention Carver, I bought the Sunfire Theater Grand 3 in 2002 which had side axis (wide) channels that were not just an extension of the left and right but using a matrixed wide channel to fill in the gap between the front and side surrounds. It worked great.

kota1
2,706 posts
 

@viridian

The engineers mixing in atmos agree that two channels is very limiting and the atmos "palette" let’s them place the musical objects much more realistically.

Yes, there are bad and good atmos mixes, just like everything else. I find the atmos renderer in the X-Box works well for music and movies mixed in 2, 5, or 7 channel. The Auro-3D, The Audyssey DSX, and DTS-Neo X (not dts-x) all work well for complex music as well as very dynamic music. If you want a GREAT Atmos mix get the Kraftwek 3D blueray or the new Harry Styles atmos mix you can stream.

 

Post removed 
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,823 posts
 

The relative scale of music recordings is a very good topic and something that does not get the attention it merits in discussions about good sound at home

It’s true the room is the biggest difference maker in the end especially for recordings of large scale ensembles where you essentially stuff a sound meant for a concert hall into a tiny room at home. For the most part it’s all a matter of relative scale. The good news for all in regards to cost: in a small room, less is often more.

More to discover