How can you evaluate a system with highly processed music?

Perfect excuse to just get a big box, on sale  setup if said genre is exclusive.

Fake instruments/auto tune vocals, always a fail  with audiophool level equipment-my subjective opinion naturally.

Always a head scratcher when I read a thread about "popular" music fans that listen with SOTA level stuff.

I'll stick with 50's-70's LP's thru tube equipment for emotional connection.

You can’t.

Not for 99% of recorded music which is an artificial construction of a sound a particular record company/artist/producer/engineer wanted.

There was no actual real time performance.

Even worse, since most music is made for commercial purposes it’s also highly unlikely that it’s being recorded to be played back on high performance playback systems.

Harry T Moss who cut most of the Beatles albums once told an interviewer that he was cutting the records to sound as good as they could on a Dansette all in one record player.

Not unless the speakers you are using to playback your music are exactly the same as the ones that were used as monitors in its creation.

Not unless your listening room has similar characteristics as the venue/studio where the music was recorded.

This is what’s known as audio’s circle of confusion.

If the studio used ATCs, Genelecs, Mackie’s, Neumann’s, Yamaha’s etc and you’re playing it back on some Focal’s, Harbeth’s, Wilson’s then you can’t expect it to sound exactly the same can you?

That only leaves pure live recordings but even then unless you were there at the time you can never be sure of how the recording should sound.

[Interestingly enough, this year’s UK Audio Show is going to have one of those live vs recording demonstrations that pop up from time to time. As far as comparisons go, it probably doesn’t get any better than that].

One way out of this circle of confusion would be to have loudspeakers that performed and behaved in standardised ways that we can all agree upon as being desirable.

As of 2023, since we are still an awful long way from that, the best we can do is to arrive at only an approximation of what we consider ’good enough’ for as much of our music as we can.

------

The Audio Consultants at the UK Audio Show 2023

Another unique and exclusive attraction at this year’s UK Audio Show, a joint venture with The Audio Consultants and Damon Sawyer, a top recording engineer at Crescent Records.

After the success of their previous recording sessions in collaboration with Crescent Records, they will be repeating the format at this year’s UK Audio Show at Staverton.

Visitors will be able to see and hear a live recording take place in the Cedar Suite and then witness how recording engineer Damon Sawyer mixes and masters that recording. A rapid balance and mix will be burned to a CD-R, which will then be played back in the same Cedar Suite using a high-end audio system set up by The Audio Consultants.

Visitors will be able to judge how close the recording can get to the experience of the live musicians.

https://www.chestergroup.org/uk-audio-show-2023/5/news/a-live-vs-recorded-session-exclusive-at-this-years-uk-audio-show/40

To be sure, if you're going to be scientific about it, it'd certainly be best to use recordings of acoustic instruments to judge a component or a system's fidelity. It'd be best for the buyer to have a familiarity with the sound of acoustic instruments, as well. The thing is, hi-fi components are a consumer item, and it's the individual consumer who ought to have the last word with their purchase. If somebody just loves bloated mid-bass, I'm not going to be the traffic cop (except if the bloated mid-bass lover shares a wall with me).

That is called the absolute sound.... yes that is very helpful, but you NEED to play the music you listen to. No good reason to buy a system that makes the music you listen to sound bad. 

J.Gordon Holt insisted you couldn’t. Spending a day in a recording studio can be an illuminating learning experience. ;-)

Consumer suggestion: record some live music (or even people speaking) yourself with a pair of high quality mics plugged into a good reel-to-reel recorder, and use that recording as demo material.

I suppose it depends on your objective.  Well recorded acoustic instruments and unprocessed vocals are a far better reference to evaluate a sound system IMHO, but it's best if you're actually familiar the sound of the instruments....not everyone has a ton of exposure to such things.    Electronic bass thumps may have their place.  

Obviously I weren’t at the studio and I don’t know how the song sounds like. Once I play the song I will know how the song sounds like. I then play that song on many different systems. I then continue the process like that. This is how I evaluate.

Is the purpose musical enjoyment or "evaluation"?

Count me out.

Listen to and enjoy whatever kind of music gives you pleasure. But to form an opinion on the sonic accuracy of reproduction you have to use identifiably reliable sources. It can be any kind of music…polka, flamenco, marching band, bluegrass, Schubert Lieder, or jazz combo…anything.  But it must be recorded simply, as close to live to two track as possible, with unamplified instruments. 

mglik
THANK YOU!

I have mentioned that so many times and that is probably my biggest reason to give negative comments on things like Graphic equalizers. You might be getting what YOU think a song should sound like but that isn’t necessarily what the artist of Engineering staff intended. Thankfully I am not alone on that and many high end designers provide a bypass circuit to eliminate the TONE elements completely. In my mind if I don’t like the way some album is mixed, then it is their fault and I am not going to waste a lot of time or money trying to make them into something that aren’t.

ALSO along similar lines I take offense at people trying to colour there sound in general by the types of equipment. Of course we al have our preferences but are they NATURAL. I was just listening to a new (to me) artist yesterday and though I liked the content of their songbook, it was unusually bright and almost too much so. I did find that while streaming to some of their other albums, they weren’t so bright. This was an eyeopener for me as I have never really noticed what audiophiles were talking about when telling us that what they experienced in a particular situation was ’Bright’ sounding music. I guess that speaks volumes about MY experience.
As Fuzztone mentioned Do you like it or do you spend your time tearing it appart.

But can you really evaluate a system by listening to highly processed, electric/electronic music? How do you know what that sounds like?

Early on, they thought photography would replace painting because it would be more "realistic." But it didn’t do that because people gradually learned that photographs also have perspective and interpretation. The notion that capturing "the moment" as it "really" was became harder to believe.

The notion that audio equipment is meant to "capture" what something sounds like "live" retains the naiveté which is no longer tenable in the photography/painting question. Most systems can deliver some reasonable level of simulacrum, but various systems will do this differently. (And there's no way to know which is the better one from a realism standpoint; you weren't there and even if you were, where were you sitting, etc.?) It’s those differences that matter and those same types of differences will also qualify different recordings of processed music.

Audio systems deliver qualitative experiences. Electronic or processed music sounds different as delivered by different systems. Live music also sounds different from different systems. The salient question is: how does it sound to you?

+1 @hilde45 "The salient question is: how does it sound to you?" Bingo!

Traveling back home today. First thing to do will be to warm up system and then listen and chill for a while. Not only does it sound nice and sooth but it's the tonic we are all after here.

@mglik  Each to their own sounds sounds in French. Chacun a' son gout. https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/2332197

I read the original question as "how can you use electronica to evaluate a system?" The posts afterwards are discussing how music is processed not only in the acts of the transducers in the recording studio, but in the choices one makes putting together systems.

I'd say if your system can do a decent job with piano and voice, and it plays your long time favorites well, then most all is right with the world. Play all the electronica you want after that, and then use that to tune the lowest bass content in your system(s). It does come back to preference, but now there are subwoofer systems that offer tuning/EQ of the lowest bass content.

You can not. You must use a “known sound”.. unprocessed acoustical to calibrate your system, then you can be sure that electronically and processed music is being reproduced with equal fidelity. 
 

For almost 50 years, I know what certain instruments sounds like because I have them or my band members had them. Sure a Marshall amp sounds different than a fender tube amp, a Rickenbacker sounds different than a Stratocaster or a Les Paul, and a zildjian sounds different than a Sabian (same size/type of course).

From the 70’s, I would take albums into stores with my favorite music that emphasized certain instruments and I would make most of my decision on how the system recreates that sound. Once it passes the 1st phase, then on to the other criteria. But if an instrument doesn’t sound like the real thing which I have access to, then it’s a waste of time to go forward with this gear
 

John Atkinson made the point to Gordon Holt that the sound made by an electric guitar plugged into an amplifier was just as much an acoustic signal as is an acoustic instrument, and he was correct. But recorded sounds produced purely electronically is a different matter: that sound never traveled though air, from an instrument (whether acoustic or amplified) to the recording microphone. There are plenty of recordings in which the electric bass, electric guitar, and/or keyboard instrument/s was/were plugged into the recording console, not into an amplifier and then recorded with a mic.

I’ve watched and listened as a recording engineer played with the dial on a studio’s parametric equalizer (far different from a graphic equalizer), drastically changing the sound of the recording. For evaluating the timbral neutrality of loudspeakers, make and use your own recordings! Listening purely for pleasure is a different activity. "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream" as someone once sang. ;-)

@mglik not sure if you have read this old piece.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/capturing-it-live-peter-mcgrath

I was lucky enough to listen one of Peter's recordings recently. Needless to say I almost got tears in my eyes. I'm now also considering upgrading to the Alexia V.

The performance and arrangement are certainly most important.

I do, however, most enjoy acoustic instruments and voices.

Heavily processed Pop, etc. can surely be a lot of fun. And the performance of my system can also be evaluated with any content. 
However, I believe acoustic instruments and vocals are able to be a gauge.

@quattro: I have a bunch of Peter’s recordings, made for Levinson, Audiofon, and Harmonia Mundi. Excellent sound and music.

You can’t evaluate your system’s abilities by playback of electronic and highly produced pop. I found that all my systems can recreate those genres effortlessly. My non-audiophile friends (sounds arrogant of me) always lose their minds when I play something “highly processed” as they experience that emotion that comes with hearing near perfect reproduction of music.. yes, I know that’s subjective….FWIW I’ve found that most of my listening sessions start with electronic music and that after 30 minutes or so I begin to get fatigued. It sounds fantastic initially but I think our brains aren’t suited to long listening sessions with that perfectly articulated sound. If you want to test your system (and acoustics) try a symphony or rock band. Yes, I know the list of variables is endless and subjective and open to fierce debate but these genres will reveal your systems weaknesses much faster than “highly processed” pop/electronic.

I knew I had the right system for me when I stopped listening to the equipment and concentrated on the music. I always use vocals, piano, violin, sax and cymbals to evaluate a system. Electronic music won’t show the accuracy or realism of a system IMO.

I don't know why you'd want to evaluate a system with music other than the kind that you like. Personally, I wouldn't care how music I don't listen to sounds on my system. I listen to rock and electronic, so how classical guitar sounds on my system would be meaningless to me. 

I've probably already mentioned this elsewhere, but a violin/fiddle sounds distinctly different when it's under your ear...in other words, you are playing it yourself...than it does when somebody else is playing it, even a couple feet away.

Defining what you mean by "highly processed" would be helpful when asking this question. Do you consider Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody to be highly processed? How about every Steely Dan or Rush album? One could make the argument that anything recorded on master tapes is highly processed. But let me stop with the rhetorical questions. I can listen to a Brian Eno or Richard H. Kirk or Dead Can Dance or Kraftwerk album and find as much nuance and musicality being revealed than if I listen to Abraxas

I can listen to contemporary and earlier electronic and ambient music and can find that the layered complexity can challenge the limitations of systems and also tell you if the system is revealing everything in the recording.  That has to do as much with one's ability to hear vs. listening. 

I find my system reveals more when everyone is asleep and the house is dead quiet and I'm listening on headphones vs. when the house is "alive" and I'm listening w/ my monitor speakers. 

I think the proper question would be how can you evaluate a system with a crappy recording and environmental noise influencing the listening experience. 

If you are looking to evaluate a system you can do it quicker with test tones.  Dynamics, room interactions, frequency response/balance, stereo imagining and depth reproduction can be determined without listening to actual music.  Of course, follow up with a few music selections to confirm your initial findings.  The music can be anything you know well.

Taking a step back, how can we know the level of processing applied to music?   I often wonder when listening to a passage or song the amount of post processing and the source of the sound:  Voice, manipulated voice, computer, synth, instrument . . . 

@onhwy61

If you are looking to evaluate a system you can do it quicker with test tones.

That sounds incredibly nerdy but it might just be the most practical way of testing.

A guaranteed point of reference.

Are there any recommended test discs/recordings?

@12many

I think more or less everything electronically recorded is highly processed, some of it ludicrously so.

Straight recordings seemed to be abandoned as soon as recording on tape was adopted in the 1950s.

Every single voice on TV and Radio is manipulated electronically. I remember the huge banks of compressors they used in the radio station where I used to volunteer some 25 years ago.

Not a single person there cared whether their voice sounded life-like, they all wanted it to sound ’better’.

Compression has been routinely used in recording since it's birth, and moving to the digital domain has only allowed it to be used to even greater levels.

@12many even the most purists of recordings should still be considered processed.  The recordist could select from 200 different microphones when making a recording.  Now couple that with the near countless options at microphone positioning.  The recording engineer can dramatically control the sound with just these two variables.  The idea of a purist recording with no manipulation is more of a myth than reality for even highly prized, pure analog records will have some measure of dynamic manipulation and possibly digital reverb.

@cd318 & @onhwy61 

Thanks.  That is helpful.  I am not a musician nor do I create or music - I am a consumer - and I often wonder - what is that instrument or is it a computer/synth or even does their voice really sound like that ?!.   Your comments are helpful.  

Test tones? Seriously? That is ridiculous. Music is simultaneous sounds at vastly different frequencies fading in and out at grossly different rates. The system has to be able to reproduce them all without interfering with each other. Nearly infinitely more difficult than test tones.

“Audio systems deliver qualitative experiences. Electronic or processed music sounds different as delivered by different systems. Live music also sounds different from different systems. The salient question is: how does it sound to you?”

This👆 by @hilde45

+100!!

The only “evaluation” is whether it sounds good to you or not.  
If it sounds good, the evaluation is: “A”.  
If it doesn’t, then hopefully you can make some sound, sensible choices to improve what’s lacking (you’re in a good spot here on this forum for guidance in this matter) without going crazy on the bank account and sanity quotient.

The way the word “processed” is being bandied about strikes me as problematic.  
There’s no such thing as sound that is not “processed.” 
Person A, with their particular physical condition, particular mind, and particular personal proclivities, listening to a live acoustic instrument, 10 feet away from the player, is “processing” that aural stimulus differently than Person B, even if at the exact same distance.  
Human beings.  
It just gets far more “processed” after that. 
Entirely acoustic instruments recorded by microphones that “process” the sound waves into an electrical signal. Signals then “processed” into a recording. 
Throw in mixing and mastering…. 

Going upwards from here, there are so many different instruments that are electric, there are so many ways to manipulate the signal (intentionally or unintentionally) before it even reaches the recording, there are so many synthesized sounds at the actual instrument stage…

If people have a problem with instruments that aren’t completely acoustic, that’s their prerogative and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. To each their own.

Should such a person make the unwise decision to eschew being a normal, healthy person who passionately loves music and just wants to spend their life enjoying it, to instead become an obsessive, anxiety-addled neurotic who spends more time fretting over minutiae than the former (aka an ‘audiophile’ - I’m being sarcastic, yes, but lovingly so…been there, done that), then that person would just make that acoustic-only music they prefer sound as good as possible.  
Who cares what other people say?  
If someone else makes Skrillex sound “perfect” (to them, of course) in their system, that person has “evaluated” their system, and given it a grade of “A.”

Pace John Atkinson and his bass, but it depends on how much processing.  If he just amplifies the sound direct from the instrument using a vanilla amplifier then yes, a direct comparison between systems can have validity.  But if the signal is processed to the point of being artificialised then there is no basis for comparison.  All you can say is rendition on which system excites you the most.

@mglik 

Each to their own.

But can you really evaluate a system by listening to highly processed, electric/electronic music? How do you know what that sounds like?

I like to listen to voices and acoustic music that is little processed. 

Instruments like piano, violin, etc. 

And the human voice. And the joy of hearing back up singers clearly, etc.

Even if full instrumentation backing a natural sounding voice.

(eg.: singer/songwriters like Lyle Lovett or Leonard Cohen)

There is a standard and a point of reference that can be gauged.

OMG!

I've been saying this for years. And have posted it on various audio forums. 

At least in order to get a reasonable baseline of how accurate the system is, or in order to tell if a change made an improvement or not. 

Most people have heard acoustic instruments, and have a good idea of what they sound like. And if they hear those instruments, with minimal processing, on a system, they can tell how close it sounds to hearing it live. 

But with musicians playing electronic instruments in the studio, even if we know the guitarist was playing a Strat, we can't possibly know what effects they were playing through, or how the engineer manipulated the signal after it was recorded. Things get even worse with synths.

Then there is the entire aspect of soundstage and imaging. The vast majority of studio recordings, if they have any semblance of soundstage and imaging, it is almost completely artificial, created by the engineer using: panning, delay, phase, and other studio tricks. Not to mention, the musicians are usually not playing at the same time, in the same acoustic space, so there is no natural relationship of  musicians to the space, or the other musicians.

Where, with classical recordings, for example, all the musicians are playing at the same time, in the same acoustic space, where recording engineers take great effort to capture the event as it happens, with as much of the ambience and other spatial cues of the acoustic space (usually using something like a Decca tree or Blunlein mic setup) .

Therefore, if a violinist sounds like they are coming from the left of the other musicians, or the percussionist sounds like they are coming from back of the ensemble, it is because that is where they were when the recording was made. Not because the engineer panned them to sound as if that is where they were.

Dear @mglik : All recorded MUSIC are way processed through the recording process steps been acoustic or elctric/electronical: it needs microphones to start with the process.

" How do you know what that sounds like? "

We really don’t know for sure even with acoustics because one thing is what we listen in a live event and what we listen in a room/system at home. Yes we can evaluate what for our live MUSIC experiences we think is near to those experiences.

We all started our room/system evaluation for 10-20-30 or more years when step by step wse gone changing speakers/electronics/CD players/cartridges and the like and through all that heavy learned room/system " voyage " learned to evaluate a system almost any system.

In my case through all those years a test/evaluation process was created where I was choosing some recording tracks in LP/CD that through the years too were changing and improved and I could say that today my evaluation process with those choosed recorded tracks is almost bullet proof.

I use almost everykind of MUSIC from the Telarc 1812 LP passing for the D2D M&K Flamenco Fever and the Sheffield Drum record and the Paramita LP by WindMusic label or the CD Gladiator even Laura Branigan Self Control single and Fun Fun Color My Love 45rpm Maxi Single and the great voice of Montserrat Caballé , Kabi Laretei on piano Chopin Nocturne on Proprius label and Center Stage by Wilson Audio Label and other more as the RR Dafos. I know on each one track even the tone of diferrent recording mistakes or clicks/pops.

Different tracks to evaluate different characteristics on MUSIC and ovbusly always the same tracks for evaluation of those different characteristics.

Well that’s me.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

@larsman 

I don't know why you'd want to evaluate a system with music other than the kind that you like. Personally, I wouldn't care how music I don't listen to sounds on my system. I listen to rock and electronic, so how classical guitar sounds on my system would be meaningless to me

Long before I was into classical music, I still understood, that it is recorded with much less processing, and in ways that captured the natural spatial cues of the acoustic space it was recorded in. 

So, if a system reproduces classical music accurately, I have a better chance of knowing that what I hear on rock recordings, is accurate to the way it sounded when the band and engineers were done with it. 

It is a great way to get a baseline. 

Without that baseline, rock recordings may sound good, but not actually be accurate.

@tylermunns

The only “evaluation” is whether it sounds good to you or not.
If it sounds good, the evaluation is: “A”.
If it doesn’t, then hopefully you can make some sound, sensible choices to improve what’s lacking (you’re in a good spot here on this forum for guidance in this matter) without going crazy on the bank account and sanity quotient.

The way the word “processed” is being bandied about strikes me as problematic.
There’s no such thing as sound that is not “processed.”
Person A, with their particular physical condition, particular mind, and particular personal proclivities, listening to a live acoustic instrument, 10 feet away from the player, is “processing” that aural stimulus differently than Person B, even if at the exact same distance.
Human beings.
It just gets far more “processed” after that.
Entirely acoustic instruments recorded by microphones that “process” the sound waves into an electrical signal. Signals then “processed” into a recording.
Throw in mixing and mastering….

Going upwards from here, there are so many different instruments that are electric, there are so many ways to manipulate the signal (intentionally or unintentionally) before it even reaches the recording, there are so many synthesized sounds at the actual instrument stage…

If people have a problem with instruments that aren’t completely acoustic, that’s their prerogative and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. To each their own.

Should such a person make the unwise decision to eschew being a normal, healthy person who passionately loves music and just wants to spend their life enjoying it, to instead become an obsessive, anxiety-addled neurotic who spends more time fretting over minutiae than the former (aka an ‘audiophile’ - I’m being sarcastic, yes, but lovingly so…been there, done that), then that person would just make that acoustic-only music they prefer sound as good as possible.
Who cares what other people say?
If someone else makes Skrillex sound “perfect” (to them, of course) in their system, that person has “evaluated” their system, and given it a grade of “A.”

I think the OP is only referring to evaluating a system, not what one is going to listen to for enjoyment at other times.

And yes, all recorded music is processed. But, without argument, classical is by far the least processed, and much closer to being an accurate representation of the original event than any studio recording. What is on the recording is much closer to the actual sound of the instruments, than the average studio recording.

The vast majority of classical recordings, are usually only slightly compressed, minimal EQ, minimal mixing. There is no: quantization, noisegating, autotune, panning, delay, echo, etc, used on classical recordings.

There are much fewer layers of processing between what is on the recording, than studio rock, pop, country, etc recordings.

So, if one wants to evaluate a system for accuracy, I don’t think one can get any better than classical.

Before I got into classical, I still used it as a tool, in order to get a baseline for accuracy.

Dear @simonmoon : Accuracy is only one main MUSIC characteristic and not necesarily must be classical recording scores because the recording process depends too of the mastering process, plating and the like.In evaluation a room/system I think that the main MUSIC characteristic is transient response that develops the MUSIC dynamic power and yes that transient response must be accurated and your first hand experiences with live MUSIC ( any kind of MUSIC ) will tell you if it’s fine or wrong.

For accuracy I prefer the digital alternative over analog one ( everything the same. ) and does not matters if the score is acoustic or electronical or more or less processed. There are a lot of recordings with more processed steps that we can imagine and even that in many of those recordings you body are " moving/dancing " when listen those recordings classical or not..

Classical scores as the Firebird, 1812, Pictures at Exibition, Mahler symponies or other complex scores can’t tell us all about a room/system, can gives us maybe the 85%-90% of its quality level performance.

If we take recordings scores by Hans Zimmer, Vangelis, Jarré and many others we have down there a way wider accurated frequency response range, synthetizers is a way different world that makes we can complete a 99% room/system evaluation.

But exist other kind of MUSIC where normally we are not really accustom to and is the Asian scores where like Paramita recording ( Chinese composer. ) that uses only acoustic instruments ( including female voice. ) where the developed sound of those instruments are almost totally unknow for almost all of us and those kind of sounds are a true test to any room/system. Same happens with the instruments used in the Dafos scores ( Reference Recording label. ) and these kind of recordings an other ones I choosed in my evaluation whole process.

I own several CD’s of original soundtrack films where you can find out several to test any system. Gladiator is only an example but you can listen to the score of Memories of a Geisha and the MUSIC is splendid with yo yo Ma and Itzak Perlman or 3-4 tracks of the film The Thin Red Line and many more.

Other than the digital recorded old Telarc 1812 LP does not exist a classical score to evaluate the bass range of any system but CD’s as the Gladiator and the like.

Why is so important to me the home system bass range quality level? well in a home system as better the system bass range as better the overall quality performance. In a home system the MUSIC " belongs " to that bass range not to the mid range because the bass range and especially the low bass range develops notes/harmonics that modulates the quality level performance of the mid range that at the same time modulates the high frequency range response. So as better the bass range as better the home system. Yes, it has to be accurated.

R.

@simonmoon Define, “accuracy.”

”Sounds exactly like a violin does in person”?  
“Sounds exactly like a piano does in person”?

This may be true to the listener.  
Sure, it’s possible someone may “get it right,” or “as close to ‘right’ as possible.”  
A person may be able to perform some scientific process of, say, a trial run involving the placement of a world-best conductor and/or orchestral player in the “sweet spot” of their listening room for an hour’s time each trial, ultimately coming away with a significant-enough sample size of “yay” votes as to the system’s “accuracy” to be able to say, “this system is super accurate.”

Other than this extremely rare extenuating circumstance (to the average Joe at home), a listener is determining “accuracy” from a place of inherently-questionable science.

Then we look at the definition of “accuracy” again: being able to reproduce what was performed at the performance stage as accurately as possible, being able to reproduce what was heard on the studio monitors at the time of recording/mixing as accurately as possible.  
To say, “now that I’ve determined reproduction of acoustic sound is ‘accurate’ on this system, I know that reproduction of pop recordings will be ‘accurate’ as well” is problematic.  
Hearing what the pop artists, engineers and producers were hearing when they listened to the studio monitors/master tape at the time of recording/mixing is not necessarily achieved across the board after determining “my system is ‘accurate’ based on classical music reproduction.”  
A different set of principles is adopted when making a pop record.  
A setup that is “super accurate” for reproduction of recordings of exclusively acoustic instruments may not necessarily be “super accurate” in reproducing what was heard on the studio monitors/master tape on a pop record.

Saying, “this is as close as possible to what the artists/engineers/producers heard on the master tape of this particular pop record” can only be achieved by having the music/recording’s progenitors sitting in your “sweet spot” in your listening room saying, “yup, this sounds exactly like the master tape.”

The classical recording/mix/master and the pop recording/mix/master are two pretty different things.

Beyond this point, the variables become so overwhelming across the entire spectrum of music-listening as to make a proclamation of objective “accuracy” across the board pretty silly.


 

There actually are classical recordings where the orchestra or ensemble are playing in a real auditorium and the engineers use what audiophiles call purist recording techniques.  They exist and they are rare.  Most classical recordings involve multitrack recorders, EQ/filters and digital reverbs.  The recordings are made in such a manner that mistakes can be "punched out" and corrections overdubbed.  The multitrack recording is then mixed down to stereo with people making numerous decisions about the overall sound and manipulating it accordingly.  It's expensive to get an orchestra together and audiophile approved sonics is not the first priority.

Anytime the discussion of music moves into the discussion of what, how, why

the subject sounds the way it does

I flashback to the movie Phantom of the Paradise...

where our tortured 'hero' ends up with some 'studio time'

although not the way he'd hoped for....

Wiki !!!

Changed forever how I thought about it....then

Now?

I've yet to stop laughing....;)

@onhwy61: What you say is true of contemporary Classical recordings, but not of recordings made in the 1950’s and 60’s; all of those were recorded on a 2-track or 3-track machine (that’s all there was back then). Lots of recordings made in England and Europe were done so with minimal miking, including those made with the famous Decca tree, using only a pair of mics.

In the 70's, 80’s, and 90’s there were a number of small audiophile labels (including Wilson) making Classical recordings using only two or three mics, recorded onto a 2-track machine. I have a bunch of them, and they’re not that rare, hard to find, or expensive.

@bdp24 I agree with your comments.  Big labels recording top orchestras with an all analog chain takes us back 40 to 50 years ago.  Times have changed.

Dear @mglik  :  highly processed or not I will add to what I posted that the first step is to know " what to look for " on each one evaluation we want to do and I think that to to do that we need to define all the MUSIC home system characteristics that will be under evaluation ( each one of us have each one characteristic list that not necessarily coincide in between. ) and obviously we have to have several first hand experiences with live MUSIC ebents ( any kind of event/experiences. ).

Obviously too that we have to idenify in our " arsenal " of recordings 4-6 tracks for each characteristic that be as accurated as we can to really shows or where the characteristic really shines andafter all those we need  5-6 complete MUSIC scores to have the system whole evaluation and to be almost sure of our evaluation process we have to challenge it in at least 10-15 different systems to prove that each one of us prooooocess is " bullet proof ".

I think that with out a well defined evaluation process we could have almost nothing.

Btw, I said " accurated  as posible ", as posible because in both recording and playback process there are no true  accuracy, just does not exist, but the other way around: several inaccuracies and we have to try to mantain any kind of inaccuracy at minimum levels.  At the end we know that our ears sensitivity of sounds is very limited an non-accurated and is our main tool for system evaluation:

How The Ear Works (soundonsound.com)

R.

I have to say that those recording tracks and the full MUSIC scores must be a true challenge to any room system at  real ( live. ) SPL's. and to put at minimum all those room/system inaccuracies/distortions at least we have to intent take some measures ( today are many digital tools with a microphone at the seated position or in a near field one. ) as THD and IMD levels, noise levels, frequency response, etc,etc.

At the end we need try to stay as near is posible true to the recording and if we arrives there after the room/system fine tunning then we will enjoy the quality MUSIC levels as never before on each one  listening sessions day by day.

Obviously that all those is up to you.

R.