Actual performance - vs - a Hi-Fi system....what say you?

maxward wrote: »

...but to question the realism of the sound?

My whole point.

Tom

SeleniumFalcon wrote: »

I think what's happened, at least in his case, was that his mental "picture" of what was real was composed by listening to recordings that "enhanced" the listening experience. Recording engineers want to be able to correct for any perceived imbalance between one section of the orchestra with another after the recording has been made. They do this by placing multiple microphones throughout the sections of the orchestra and recording each microphone feed on an individual channel. This allows for highlighting certain instruments during the mastering of the final recording. What this results in is an overly imaginative presentation of what never happened.
He went to the performance expecting to be thrilled by hearing a bigger version of what he heard at home. He did admit that the orchestra's dynamic range and size impressed him, but he thought his system, "gave more detail".

I have a few orchestral selections that do not have this "imaginative presentation" and to be frank? They do sound somewhat unnatural when listening on the rig. The height and depth are exactly where they should be but the volume or impact of the instruments or sections of instruments are seemingly well of the mark. With that said, it is/they are recorded with what sounds like one microphone.

These type of recordings shine for playback as the listener would hear it but the deficiencies of differing volumes/impact can be rather distracting. Not bad but noticeable. Very noticeable in certain performances where the orchestra is spread out quite a bit.

As a young teenager, I ran the mixing board for my HS and I did exactly what the recording engineers did...multiple microphones and blended them to where after it was amplified, the singers and certain instruments were blended better for "overall" playback pleasure, no matter where you were seated within the concert hall/auditorium (or at least to the best I could get it....seating locations could make or break the end result).

SeleniumFalcon wrote: »

I had another customer who played bassoon in a symphony orchestra and he wanted his sound system to sound like he heard things when he was in the middle of the orchestra. He was never satisfied with any of my demonstrations I set up. He would take a certain turntable system home and return it a few days later saying, "It's good, but not what I'm looking for". He eventually became an audio reviewer for a well known magazine.

Hahaha....I can say with complete certainty that he was living a pipe dream. I know exactly what he is referring too, as I was involved with many a choir both in church and as a younger lad that would place me in between the orchestra(s) or smack dab in the middle of the "on stage" performance.

The thing is, the human race has not developed the technology to have a playback system "put you there". Case in point, listen to a train coming from off in the distance (standing about 20 feet from the tracks), listen to it as it rolls by and as it goes away, off in the distance. You can hear things live, as it happens with a depth and authority (along with spacial locationality cues) that you will NEVER hear on any playback system. Even NASA's.

There was a thread here many years back (IIRC....I believe it was here) where they took full range speakers and placed them where the instruments were within an orchestral layout. While this may give the listener the "illusion" that the Oboe section was located 20' center to left and 10 feet back and the bassoon (his instrument) was 30' center to right, 25 feet back (for example). The issue would be that the reflections and aura of each of the instrument sections would be compromised by the sides, corners and the backs of each full range speakers impeding, as well as reflecting unnaturally, the sound coming from each of the sections (if you will).

Well, that and the recording would still (most likely) be compromised by said "imaginative presentation" and then add to that? The cost of said system along with the fact that the ordinary listening aficionado doesn't have a 100'x40' listening room to place all of those speakers in.

Now I will say this. This customer of yours had demanding tastes. I can certainly admire that but his expectations were wildly off the charts in terms of realistic playback ability......at least as far as we have come in technology as a human race to reproduce what he was looking for. The best our current playback systems can offer us is an approximation of the actual live event. As a reviewer for a popular audio magazine, I am quite sure that he has realized this by now.

Tom

txcoastal1 wrote: »

This will all depend on genre, venue, ambiance, and atmosphere

I've sat in a hotel court yard in the middle of multiple buildings. After a nice dinner, with your gal, good bottle of wine, or after dinner cocktail.
A single piano, or a little 3-4 piece band...bet you remember how good that sound was and what a great evening. Sound bouncing in all the right places...."ambiance, and atmosphere"

Or, a few feet from a well tuned piano and a good pianist. One of our old friends who has an alcove riser off the main living room with windows overlooking the bay. Jim will sit after dinner gathering periodically and get on his grand and play a few tunes....he can do it all from Jazz, classical, to boogie woogie. That area was built for his piano architecturally and acoustically

Or...
A show at the, Carnegie, The Met, Royal Albert, or and old local like Majestic in San Antonio etc

Dare you to start telling your gal, "I'd rather be at home listening to my rig"
Seriously though, these times to listen are hard to beat. I know you've been there!!

DUDE....you speak my language!

My grandmother had a grand piano in her LR and when she played (or my Dad?) So nice man....so nice. She was a piano teacher and Dad was one of her students. We didn't have a bay to look over (except the pad overlooking Puget Sound in WA) but the sounds? Oh....oh, so nice! I have yet to EVER hear a recording or playback system that could even come CLOSE to what I experienced in that LR or any of the other grand piano's I heard played by them in other venues/houses.

Some live music just sounds better than.....well, it's just a slice of heaven here on Earth, to be honest. There is no better experience and nothing can compare to it. From the courtyard, to the private performance, to the guitar plucker that is feet away from you to the madrigals that are belting it out 7 feet away from you as you stand in complete awe of what is going on.

Yeah, I've been there. I'm sure many of the other folks who are reading this have been there too.

It's one thing to talk about the "magic" that happens within a system. It's quite another thing to experience the "magic" that truly happens with live music. There is nothing else like it.

Tom