Peterayer:
Yeah, and if you still have the piano in the same room as your stereo system I'll slide the cover off the keyboard, play a single note and say:
"Gosh was I being generous when I said 5%!"
Edseas2 |
Somewhere in the miasma of the OP's question is another beguiling paradox, namely:
What percent of the time has live, unamplified music ever been mistaken by anyone as being other than "real"?
If the answer to this question is close to "zero" (as in "zero" percent of the time I have mistaken live music for being recorded ) then, how is it or, rather IS it possible for the OP's question to be other than the reciprocal? |
To Peterayer -
You won't like this citation much from Bob Katz - for anyone who doesn't know who he is he's one of the best recording engineers alive today - here's a link to his bio:
http://www.digido.com/images/00495-Bob_Katz_Bio.pdf
As Peter should know by now, I am fond of saying something that, on the surface, seems implausible yet, under closer scrutiny, may have a lot of merit. Old style conversation, if you will.
Here's the citation (from monoandstereo.com):
MI: Do you think that it is possible to archive the same experience as live acts on recorded media like playback systems? Have you ever heard any recordings that stunned you?
BK: Yes. I've heard great recordings that stun me. But every time I go to hear the group live in front of me with no amplification, I think that we are so far away from the live experience that we will never have that experience.
Sorry Peterayer.
While I certainly believe that someone who has never heard a SOTA system such as yours may say that he didn't know what such a system was capable of reproducing, do I believe that it approaches live, unamplified music sound wise?
No WAY Jose!
Neither does Katz.
Ed |
Bob Katz and Pop Music - you're kidding right?
Ever hear of Chesky Records?
The notion that we don't have the ability to "reproduce "live" music" is taken out of context?
Guess you didn't read the OP's original question.
Sounds par for the course with you, you didn't read Katz' bio either.
|
Yeah Physics Genius , I know that physics has changed a lot since 2002. |
My friend, a viola player ("violist") recently tried out for the "Marine Chamber Orchestra" (also known as "the President's own") so I asked him if he had ever heard a high end audio system. He said he once went to the home of a conductor who had a stereo system that "took up the whole wall" - (clearly fitting the description of the impoverished musician who is unable to afford high end audio!).
I asked him how it sounded and he said "Great!".
I then asked him if it sounded "real" and he looked puzzled and wanted to know what I meant by that. I responded that I wanted to know if it sounded like a live performance (knowing that he plays live, unamplified music in an orchestra) and he looked at me smiling and said:
"Are you kidding? Of course not! It can't, its not possible to reproduce those sounds and the sense around you."
Ed |
5%, fwiw, is seemingly extraordinarily generous - at least to the ears of a trained violist and, at least according to him.
In a later part of the same conversation I asked him if he thought that it were possible to reproduce "even 5%" of the musical reality of a live unamplified performance based on what he heard from the conductor's system.
His simple response was "No, not even close to 5% - much less than 1%."
But, then again, he doesn't have CDK84's incredibly in-depth knowledge of today's stereo systems - he's just a trained concert violist so he must not know much, after all.
:)
Ed |
Here's a thought and why my friend, the trained concert violist, said that 5%, nay1% is MUCH too high a percentage:
From the posts that claim that the music sounded real (albeit from memory as I will not be rereading all of the posts!) I recall that the listeners who claimed that their systems sounded real always said that it was an occasional note that sounded real, never an entire piece.
If we simply ask, what number of NOTES soun(ed) real (remember, NO-ONE said that an entire piece, song, etc. sounded real) then we quickly realize that of ALL THE NOTES PLAYED that many fewer than 1% sound (ed) real.
At the Chopin concert which I attended the conductor said that in the 20 years that they'd been playing that he calculated that they played over ONE billion notes!
Just a thought.
Ed |
Actually, I don't remember anyone saying that an entire recording sounded real and, if so, based on my own experience (and it has been a few years ((as Mr. Ayer points out)) since I worked in the loudspeaker shop that made the loudspeakers for Bob Katz, after all) I have never heard any system EVER that comes CLOSE to making an entire recording sound real and, when I posed this same question to a few members at the last BAS meeting they were in agreement with me that they didn't think that it was possible to fool someone in to believing that an entire piece was real with today's technology.
As to playing 1 billion notes I simply took the conductor at his word without bothering to check his math.
Ed
Ed |
Mr. Ayer-
I assume that you forgot all about listening to Holly Cole - "Don't Smoke In Bed" -on your system. I listened to the entire album but that was when your system was a year or two older so I guess that I haven't heard a "great recording on one of today's great systems" have I?
Furthermore, I'm not talking about a recording being acceptable if it "certainly resembled the sound of a piano", I'm talking about a recording being indistinguishable from the sound of a real piano.
We are nowhere near that today from everything that I have heard so far.
Ed |
I am a VERY new member to the BAS and I am NOT speaking for them at all! I simply asked a couple of their members the same question that is being posed here for their opinion just as I asked my musician friend for his opinion.
Happy New Year Irv!
Ed |
