"Yes, but it's not exclusive. I frequently play solo piano CDs, and several times people have come to the door and thought it was a real piano playing."
I'm not obtuse, I hear what you guys are saying, and I can only conclude that I need to get out more. Neither my system nor any system that I've ever heard has been that convincing to me. I've gotten emotional, achieved satisfactory suspension of disbelief, and been in awe of the technology that made it possible. But I've never heard a system that I found indistinguishable from the truth. Those of you who have are my heroes. |
Very, very nice post Bryon - as erudite as I've seen. |
Have you ever been walking down a residential street on a summer day and heard a musician practicing his guitar, horn, drum set or whatever in his apartment? You know immediately, don't you? |
"BTW, IMO people that buy audio equipment aren't heroes, people that engineer them are."
Well said Irvrobinson, but that only serves to prove my point. True heroes are self-effacing. Bravo! |
I wish that I could understand by what measure you guys are able to quantify realness. Is it information? IMO, realness is more than that. A high resolution photograph can yield all the empirical information of a direct viewing, but it's not the same, is it? We can go back and forth between the photo and the object and never be able articulate anything lacking in the photo. But still, it's less to me. I'm not saying that I've never been momentarily fooled by a sound coming from a speaker, especially when it comes from outside the plane, but to me, that's not nearly enough to make a case for realness. I suspect a system will alway's be limited, if only by the differences in the way that instruments and a speakers excite a room response. |
"If you watch it on your 20 inch Sony you are getting 10% of the experience, but if you watch it at Imax, closer to say 80%."
I like your Grand Canyon analogy Bjesien. But do you really mean to say "experience" or would "information" be more precise? . At what resolution does one start to feel the "take your breath away" experience of actually being there in a really effective way? It would seem that there should be real and unreal - simple. But maybe this thread proves that there are many subjective perceptions of reality.
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The more I read this thread, the more it becomes clear to me just how much this topic has in common with the myriad threads on "tubes vs solid state" (Now I know why you've given this thread a pass Tvad). A common theme of those threads is whether or not solid state can sound like tubes. The answers always seems to narrow down to: yes to some and no to others, depending on ones personal values. I'm no expert but it seems to me that we hear with our brains, and the brain is pretty good at filtering out what it deems unimportant. Sure a home system can approach the real thing if the difference isn't that important to you. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, as with tubes, some will always hear a difference because there is one, and it's meaningful to them, while others will not because of the slight value the place on that difference. |
"You're treading on dangerous turf, Phaelon"
Thanks for the warning Irvrobinson.
You're not being fair. Are we talking about measurements or listening? You can't talk measurements on the "does it sound like a tube debate" and then switch to listening on the "does it sound real" debate.
You're not suggesting that there are perfect components that add or take away nothing, are you? If not, then a difference can be measured. And if a difference can be measured, then you have to give it the same weight as you did to tubes. Ha! :-) |
"are you saying the blind comparison test would be an invalid measurement strategy?"
I can't rationalize this, but I've never been sure that blind testing is the be-all end-all. I should also admit that, with the exception of impedance matching and similar good sense, I probably don't put as much thought into measurements as most.
You might have misinterpreted my earlier post suggesting that I might need to get out more as sarcasm. It wasn't. I haven't heard what you guys are listening to, so I have to keep an open mind. If you guys have systems that sound real to you, that's great. I don't and I'm jealous! |
"A mini grand being played in your house cannot be matched by an hi-fi system, IMO not even close."
Weseixas, Isn't it amazing though; just how much a great system can fool you into thinking it can reproduce the sound of a piano, until you actually have one in the room? Then, you're right, not even close. |
Hi Kirkus, I just pressed on your system and I'm so happy I did. How very cool! To saner times... |
"My conclusion is that it is just one of many design and execution factors that affect results depending on how well it is executed."
That seems sensible to me. It's hard to believe that anyone would employ negative feedback in their design if there wasn't, at least in the designer's mind, some net benefit to doing so. Maybe not directly, but perhaps because it allows the employment of something else in the design that more than compensates. |
"Progress ad Infinitum", "Karl Popper" & "verisimilitude", "Copernicus"
That's what I was trying to say Kirkus, or at least it would have been if I was smart enough.
IMO, this has become a very worthwhile thread to the extent that it has veered away from it's original and more casual, percentage of realness inquiry, into something more significant which is an examination of perceived reality and audio. |
In his recent work (unpublished so far) he has shown that if music is delivered intact to the brain, it is processed in the limbic system. He has also shown that as a stereo system violates human perceptual rules, the processing is moved to the cerebral cortex."
If I understand you correctly, this validates my rationalization that their is no rationalizing music. I have no idea why I find music pleasurable or why, when a chord is played on a musical instrument, it seems to strike a corresponding cord in me. When that happens, it has nothing to do with my cerebral cortex. But the cerebral cortex is precisely what many of us rely on when we listen to our systems and try to validate our decisions. |
