Do we really know what "Live" music sounds like?

Yes.

I don’t care much for the suggestion of a salesperson playing something in the store. That could be a very forgettable experience. [edit - and now I read @feldmen4  thought.  Quite so.]

Another rather el-cheapo option - seek out a church (however defined) where they have a resident choir accompanied by a pipe organ.

If sitting through the service isn’t your calling, they rehearse, you know, and sometimes may have special performances of some choral piece/s by JS Bach if your lucky.

live music comes in many forms

music can be performed live but amplified by p-a systems - electric/synthesized instruments are of course processed at the outset, that is their sound...

to me this explains why there can often be such divergent tastes and sonic preferences in reproduced music - different people can have vastly different reference experiences for ’live music’

some smaller venues let you hear some unamplified music mixed in with amplified (in a jazz club for instance, if you are sitting near the artists)

it is reasonably rare that one gets to hear major artists perform live yet unamplified, but you can hear such naturally performed live music with local artists, acapella groups, street artists, smaller professional performance venues, classical venues (chamber groups)

@secretguy nailed it. I’ve got an hour or two (entire life) of listening to live music. 
What we hear recorded is always subject to the mics (brand, type, etc) any amplification at all, placement of mics and post production. There are a million other variables as well. But, it doesn’t matter. Good sound, is good sound. That is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, but the general baseline is pretty universal. Some people listen better than others, some people just prefer what they prefer. Sometimes this game is just too analytical and we forget to just get absorbed in the moment. When that is easy to do, then good sound is what you have.

Can tell the folks who read the article.

enjoying the answers and the non answers.

love this stuff. 

Live music used to be the preferred method for street beggars. 

Some were darn good too. Now you just need a #1 black felt tip marker

and some folded cardboard and you can make more than the people

at MacDonalds in less time.

Most live music I have heard has sucked, especially rock music, utterly dreadful....big over blown booming bass...way way too loud....saw imagine dragons a few years back, sounded mostly awful. Marron 5 at the TD garden sounded a little better....However, the Boston symphony Holiday pops concert at Boston’s Symphony hall sounded fantastic. Ahhhh the good old days! Just a short two years ago! Insane....

Am I the only one that the only thing that really stuck with me from the article was how the author thinks it’s OK to go into a music store and lie to the workers and waste their time trying to improve the sound of the author’s system?

Does a movie sound or look like a play, no.

Spent my entire childhood singing in groups and choirs un-amplified music. A choir doesn’t require application if the signers are taught correctly. Attended a church that only allowed un-amplified music (no instruments - voices only) performed by all the parishioners. I also spent time learning to play the guitar and the piano. I had to listen to a brother learn how to play the bagpipes.

I have a pretty good understanding what live "un-amplified" music sounds like. It sounds very different from music that is transmitted through a speaker.

Kind of a bogus question. My music is different than yours so you can’t say music is only un-amplified. My music is all amplified and I have spent decades playing music in different bands, so I know what certain instruments should sound like.

99% of the concerts I attend are outside and quite a few of them you can hear the guitar thru the fender amp, others you hear everything from the PA system.

You bring up mics/pa systems, how about the room/hall/arena you hear the music in? That makes a huge contribution to the sound. 
I would take a concert in a great amphitheater that is amplified instead of an orchestra concert in a concrete building that is not built for good audio

Live music sounds an almost infinite variety of ways. Even the same room will sound different based on the number and location of bodies and furniture, the temperature and humidity level, the instruments being played, and the way they are played by the musicians.  

I would think that older people know...

When I was really young I played at recital competitions (clarinet) and my sister played piano in the same (she was good).

In these cases the audience always considerably outnumbered the players.

Later on when I was 10, or so, I played guitar with a local Blue Grass band @ local "coffee houses" and none of the instruments/vocals were amplified (including bass guitar).

Once again the audience greatly outnumbered the band members.

Added to this are the numerous band/classical local performances I recall from my youth.

Much later on, but long before "unplugged" became a thing, I also listened to various acoustic/non-amplied performances in the greater Los Angeles area.

In the late 70's I was waiting for a dinner table @ a local restaurant and Herbie Hancock played a few improvisational pieces on an upright piano they had available (he was also waiting for a table:-).

Never cared for his electronic keyboard stuff up to that time, but he was awesome on the acoustic piano, just doodling away.

Anyway, musicians often have audiences that HAVE experienced non-amplified music/sound.

DeKay

For me it really depends on the room or live concert venue as to how good live can be.  Honestly what I can reproduce at home from studio recordings is better than most concerts I've been to. But that's an entirely different sound space.  What I can reproduce at home from live recordings takes hooking up my JBL's and I might get close to what I've experienced at live events. Fun question though. 

PS I'm not talking about classical music here. 

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If we don’t who does? 

Another great post! 

By the best mechanic on audiogon....

😊

More good times at weddings, quinceanera, anniversaries, and PARTIES than at concerts. As for live, they don't get much more live than that, Amigo!

Regards..

I will not add anything to this very good post! thanks...

He wrote more economically than me anyway..... 😊

Skoff: "Correct judgment requires a fixed standard – one that is absolute and unvarying....we need to know what the reality we’re trying to re-create actually sounds like. And in order to gain that knowledge, we need, somehow, to experience the real thing."

From which row? Which side? There is no one fixed standard at the live event itself. There is no "the" to the initial reality.

@edcyn "I know my system doesn’t sound like live music. In many cases that’s a good thing, my system sounds better than live music."

Great observation. Indeed, the quest may be to get back to the music as conceived not as performed or performed and initially reproduced. This was Glenn Gould's idea. Concerts were not ideal ways to approximate the music. Concerts are dispensable. He did so and to all our benefit.

Skoff: "Correct judgment requires a fixed standard – one that is absolute and unvarying....we need to know what the reality we’re trying to re-create actually sounds like. And in order to gain that knowledge, we need, somehow, to experience the real thing."

From which row? Which side? There is no one fixed standard at the live event itself. There is no "the" to the initial reality.

@edcyn "I know my system doesn’t sound like live music. In many cases that’s a good thing, my system sounds better than live music."

Great observation. Indeed, the quest may be to get back to the music as conceived not as performed or performed and initially reproduced. This was Glenn Gould's idea. Concerts were not ideal ways to approximate the music. Concerts are dispensable. He did so and to all our benefit.

Unamplified listening acoustic music HABIT is key...

Timbre perception is the key factor...

Engineering audio vocabulary is USELESS to tune acoustically an audio system....

Speaking about "bass" or "highs" end of the spectrum made no sense, save to compare 2 amplifiers or 2 pieces of gear... This is USELESS in listening experiments and experience in acoustic...

Acoustic is the sleeping princess and all pieces of gear are only the 7 working dwarves...

Having been to over a thousand  Symphonic concerts I think so.

I know that those who go to Rock concerts are clueless .

I know my system doesn’t sound like live music. In many cases that’s a good thing, my system sounds better than live music. If I went to a lot of classical chamber or symphonic concerts and I could afford the good seats, I might try to reproduce that sound at home. In the meantime I just want my system to sound really good to me, to relax or excite me when appropriate, and give me that endorphin burst from time to time.

PS Audio has started a side project called Octave Records. The idea is to produce the best sounding recordings for SACD, PCM and vinyl. If you’re familiar with Paul McGowan you know that his descriptions of the releases will be very enthusiastic.  Keep that in mind when purchasing any.

They have a few releases out from people you’re probably unfamiliar with. Still I think this is a venture worth supporting. How many record companies even care what their releases sound like? So check out their website and see if there might be something you’re interested in. Hopefully they will grow and one day get well known performers to record with them. The website is:

Octave Audiophile Masters – PS Audio

Yeah. All the time. Every day. If the sound doesn't come from me, myself, it comes from listening to my wife play her various brands and models of acoustic guitars.

No spoiler alert those of us that are musicians know.

One of the reasons why many serious audio equipment designers at the storied firms will sponsor / underwrite / participate in the recording of music. Vandersteen, Audioquest, EAR, Conrad Johnson, Wilson, M and K, Water Lilly, Soundsmith ( via Direct Grace ).. the list is long… Witness the original acoustic event, see where things go wrong in the recording / reproduction chain, seek to make it better.  Joe Harley at Tone Poet / Blue Note, one such genius….

@retipper Anything new with Direct Grace ? I have some sponsorship $ for a good cause.

Approx. 10,000 performances and recordings, everything from solo piano to symphony to big band to trios, etc....yeah I have a vague idea.

Spoiler alert: it can't be reproduced on a stereo.

Heard the Wailin Jennys do some unamplified songs at a great venue, soul stirring.. Pre Pandemic, i got a steady diet of acoustic unamplified music…. gotta get back to the Garden…as Joni sings…..

But do we really know what live music sounds like?

As roger pointed out when you go see a live performance with the exception of a Marching Band most all instrument and vocals are run through microphones and P/A systems.

In our grade school they had a Seattle Symphony Orchestra violinist come and play in our classroom. He demonstrated the range of the instrument with about half an hour of music, and explaining classical music, what it is like to attend a concert. This was so we would keep quiet and know when to applaud on our field trip to Seattle the next day.

The next year I played piano, then took accordion lessons, then for 6 years jr high to high school played French horn in band. In band I learned to play trumpet, and a little sax. After that I took up harmonica for a while.

Altogether that's about a decade hearing live unamplified acoustical instruments on a regular basis. Not just hearing either, but listening critically, because to play we must be in tune. Also there is a huge amount of technique involved, all of which you have to learn to hear and evaluate in both yourself and the other players.

In Jr High and High School I also attended a slew of concerts- band, orchestra, choir. All of it live and unamplified. 

So yeah I guess you could say I know what live music sounds like.

Having said that I think the whole "do you know' thing is overrated. The question is not do you know what live music sounds like. The real question is do you know what anything sounds like? The real question is, Are you a listener? Or do you merely hear?

Because in band, we had to be taught to listen, including what to listen for. Once you learn that, turns out it works for everything.

Let talk the live music.

live music is based on music instruments. Not one ,but many kinds of. Different instrument make out different sounds, Piano,drum, violin  are very popular but they are very different. You can never ask the piano get the sound like the sound from drum,right? so It is the group of instruments to make out the sound.

But for the amplifiers,it is just one or two(Pre+power),they take all the jobs, they re-produce all the sound from all the instruments. 

so it is unfair to ask the amplifier to make the same or almost same soundstage.

This is the point we understand the amplifier and we can never ever expect the  real live music coming from that equipments..

One of my favorite concerts was when one of Martin Sexton's two mics wasn't functioning at the start. The room for ~200 folks was very much like a smallish church. He lowered the other mic to the opening of his acoustic guitar and he sang unamplified. It was heavenly(pun!). Cheers,

Spencer

About twenty years ago I started seeking real unamplified instruments in an effort to know what the real thing sounded like. I found an isolated piano here and there… occasionally a little jazz trio. It helped a little. Particularly the piano and drum kit.

Then about ten years ago, I got season tickets to the symphony, 7th row center… where all sounds are unamplified and solo performers were close enough: the sound hole of the violinist or sound board of the piano was pointed directly at my seat. This had a profound effect on the objectives of my system and my upgrades took a big change in direction… for the better. I realized I had a characterization of what music should sound like that was a conflation of memories of rock concerts, systems I had heard when young, and some smaller concerts.

I turned from planar speakers and massive amplifiers to tube electronics and Sonus Faber speakers. All music types sound better with my improving system… while in the past one type might sound better with an upgrade and the rest worse. My system is an order of magnitude more musical and satisfying to listen to. Cymbals sound like brass, and trombones and trumpets have that complex microdetail that makes them so amazing when live. My system still has all the detail it used to, only the detail is not in your face detracting from the full bloom of the mid-range voices and instrument.

Yes, exposure to live un-amplified music is the key to understanding sound and creating an empirical ruler.