If Warmth Is a Distortion, Why Do So Many Audiophiles Still Defend It?

@onhwy61 You correctly admit that the conductor hears everything.  Even the conductor hears more than I do from the violin section, with the best balance that he/she creates.  Why should the audience be deprived of hearing all he can?  Logistically and financially, most will be deprived of that.  A-philes will say the 7th row is the best, but there are severe compromises in the 7th row in loss of HF and other aspects of tactility of instruments and singers.  In a typical hall, I am unhappy with all but the few center seats in the 1st row.  Even the 2nd row has loss of sparkle, palpability, etc.  My best sonic experience as a nonmusician was in 2005 when I heard jazz at Preservation Hall in New Orleans.  It wasn't a "hall" really.  It was a cave with rock walls, 2 or 3 benches.  The brass instruments were blasting in my face at reasonable volume levels, thrilling.  The upright piano in the back of the stage, still only 10-15 feet away was jangling fun.

More generally, all musicians produce noises that are not written into the score (printed music).  The skillful musician knows how to integrate the noises into the total sound of the instrument.  The audience doesn't hear most of the noise, but they also lose much of the music itself.  When hearing a triangle, do you hear just the chime, or do you also hear the metal being struck?  Both are important to hear.

viber6   Get aboard, all you types, don’t miss the bus! You are throwing away the baby with bathwater.

I agree. That’s why I share my live recording. Please share those who can. Alex/Wavetouch audio

Katie Melua - Wonderful life, Wavetouch audio live recording

Interesting post. In a perfect audio world, everything would be flat response/wire with gain/neutral. Then a component not in existence yet would have countless options for desired “colored” music or live vs studio sounding and had an equalizer built in for further tuning. Would also address those of us who like both colored and highly accurate sound, based on different music and recordings, from having to have multiple systems. Perhaps one day. 

@viber6 

You asked for a SPL app and I can recommend the app from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) that is free, easy to use, and  downloadable from the app store for either IOS or Android smartphones.

NIOSH Sound Level Meter

I too have the old Radio Shack sound level meters, analog and digital models. Both still work but I only very occasionally use the digital model with several different measurement CDs mainly because I already own a general-purpose tripod into which I can easily mount it. I notice some discrepancies in measurements between the RS meters and the NIOSH app so do try both to understand that in your use. 

Since I am not yet using REW (though I have it) I recommend understanding a base line value using the NIOSH meter for qualitative measurements. I have not yet purchased a calibrated mic to use with REW, but it is on my list. 

With any method please be aware that taking a measurement in a darkened concert hall might be seen as *highly discourteous* to other concert goers when the meter or phone lights up! Caution is advised. 

@mihorn Forgive me if I come to the wrong conclusion from your recordings when listening to flawed audio from my computer.  FWIW, I heard conventional tonal balance.   The Katie Melua recording of the voice has a fair amount of ambience, either natural or processed.  The Eric Clapton recording is more immediate, although it is hard to judge, since the volume level is low.  

The famous Nils Lofgren CD, Acoustic Live has demonstration quality sound.  But it is processed, with major boost in HF.  Cut 5 is "Keith don't go."  This is great for mid and upper bass guitar transients.  The low note E at 82 Hz is repeated many times.  But the most useful cut for me is the first, "You."  This contains vigorous guitar strums which showcase midrange/HF transients.

@earthbound It will surprise many readers that for all my talk about natural sound,  I endorse some recordings like Lofgren which are processed.  The guitar is definitely upfront stage type of sound, although the voice is muffled.  Unfortunately, most classical music recordings are designed to have mid hall type of sound.  This suits the experiences of most concertgoers who sit in the mid hall position.  At home, I use the Rane ME60 original version EQ which has 30 1/3 octave sliders, +/- 12 dB at all these freq from 20-20kHz.  With such commercial recordings, I boost HF from 8-20 kHz in variable amounts depending on the individual recording. The bands overlap, so there actually is some boost at freq down to 2 kHz.  Although my practice certainly is not what recording engineers intended to produce, it gives me a simulation of what the 1st row sounds like.  I am not an audio professional, so I don't have access to recording major classical artists, I have refined my techniques when I make recordings of amateurs and a few professional groups.  The Lofgren recording is well done for capturing the excitement of live acoustic stage sound. 

I encourage people to get used Rane ME60 original units, cheap on eBay.  I don't use any preamp. I have tried medium priced preamps.  They all inject significant veiling via the extra electronics.  I've not tried super expensive line stage preamps, but this Rane when set to 0 dB on all 30 bands has good transparency equal or better than the preamps I've tried.  But the ability to modify laid back veiled recordings is a BIG bonus, and far outweighs any slight tonal modification.  All this despite the crude small volume control on the Rane. Just be judicious, and stay out of the critical midrange.  Using this EQ will have greater benefits for your audio system than most any other intervention.  Preamps, CD players, DAC's, cables--all of these have minor effects compared to using EQ judiciously.  What about  speakers?  This is probably THE most critical component.  However, the best speaker fed natural, unprocessed recordings intended to sound like mid hall is a reject for me.  It is better for musical info retrieval to have a somewhat lesser speaker with judicious EQ to simulate sound much closer to musicians.

So now call me a preference camp member trying to change the system to my tastes.  But look at it this way--I am trying to capture in my audio system the real thing heard close up, such as from the conductor's enviable position.  I can only move in that direction by undoing lots of the choices made by engineers to capture mid hall sound.  If I got free tickets for a mid hall seat, I would go solely to enjoy the artistry of the musicians while hating the mid hall sound.  I still enjoy poor youtube audio from 1930's recordings of my favorite violinists.  Making my choices to undo poor choices of recording engineers is equivalent to the morality of fighting in self defense against attackers.