How close to the real thing?

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

Yup, not even 1000 Class A watts with zero NF is going to do that - "close" in so many ways, but it never really sounds like the real thing - even if the "gap" is small, it is unpassable for whatever reasons from recordings thru source thru electronics thru speakers to the way we hear. Which does not mean our equipment and recordings are not tremendously enjoyable in spite of that, or worth persuing with a spirit of fun.

I try to keep in mind that with recordings, the recording itself and how it was produced is the real thing that matters.

Remember recordings are reproductions. They can approach the real thing but probably never completely equal it. I've heard some come close enough, at least in my listening environment, that I do not care.

Most often, recordings are abstract reproductions conceived by its creators that bear little resemblance to the real thing, assuming it is even possible to ever experience that.

Are we getting somewhere?

Pubul57 states that "the "gap" is small", so I feel secure, now, in inferring that we're likely well beyond Edseas2's and other nay-sayers' 5%.

Let's look at it without prejudice: on an absolute scale, 5 of 100 per cent would produce a recording of a piano that sounded like Linus' toy instrument. We have far better playback than that today and have for many years.

The indisputable fact that we have no way to measure the more far-reaching and seemingly esoteric or obscure aspects of our marvelous minds' response capability does not reduce the joy of listening --or the pleasure of a fine and pointed discourse, for that matter.

'Progress', as Kirkus and Atmasphere describe it, *is* happening, whether Edseas or his violist friend accept it. We're beyond 5%, like it or don't.

Luddites were against technology on a religious basis: in philosophy there is no religion, nor is there, directly, religion in scientific reasoning (at least at our present level of understanding; there may be marvel or regard, but that is different: vis Hocking's "Into the Universe").

Edsea2's objection to the 5% solution appears unscientific, and though some of the more esoteric tweaks in our endeavor appear to revolve around witchcraft, I don't care: if my listening experienced is enhanced toward my goal of playback sounding more like live music, I don't care what kind of "weird sh*t" goes into, is placed upon, or comes out of my transducers.

If you can't quantify it, but it works with concensus or others' verification, that simply means our science lags behind our listening pleasure in the ability to measure what sounds convincingly authentic to the live source.

Is that a bad state of affairs? Not knowing why something works?

I submit that having something work --well beyond 5% efficacy-- is cause for celebration. I'm grateful for the pleasure and solace, not to mention the mood-changing opportunity that my music system offers me.

I've thought about it, been frustrated by it, and exhilarated as I learned to 'tune' it to [something approaching] its potential. I enjoy learning, talking and writing about it. The delight it gives me, however, comes from listening into the music, and out of myself.

Best Wishes for Festivus, whichever flavor you prefer. May there be satisfaction in your listening, and joy in your heart.

David

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

Maybe we... someone... anyone can come up with a chart and modifiy it until there is a concensus...
I agree that it is near impossible to make a system sound truly "live", but I still say 5% is rediculously low.
Edison's 1st phono may be 5%, but What is
Tonal Accuacy worth?
What is a soundstage worth? and as the sound stage improves, does the value go up?
What is timber worth? P.R.A.T?
Do dynamics increase your score?
When an uneducated(audiophile or musician wise) person sits in front of your system and their jaw drops.... Would that happen at 5%? I think not.... Actually a verifiable rating system would be something that we would all love to have.
Wouldn't you like to hear a 93 vs a 27?

My head is going to burst.....

An analogy (yet again!): if you drank red wine which was always very ordinary or even mediocre, you would or could with great conviction claim that there is no such as a truly extraordinary, supremely satisfying great red. But, if you sampled such a wine even just once only, and then returned forever more to the much lesser variety, you would always retain the memory of the experience, and know what was achievable. All obvious enough; and to me this experience or lack of such experience is at least one thing that divides people in this field of audio.

This clearly puts me on David's side, in believing in AND knowing what is possible. If you can put on the worst, I repeat, the worst recording in your collection and still be able to say it "sounds convincingly authentic to the live source" and talk of "The delight it gives me, however, comes from listening into the music" then you've arrived. The fact that this goal is not achievable by pushing some "perfectly" engineered, platinum plated button at the moment is just part of the landscape ...

Frank

"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.

The problem here is there is little that is convenient that will quantify the subjective experience. However, that is not to say that the subjective experience *cannot* be quantified, it can and has by Dr. Herbert Melcher.

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.

So while we can argue about what works and what does not, our brain is working it out anyway, whether we like it or not.

Kirkus, your 'quote' of me was not verbatim and thus the meaning and demeanor was altered.

It's my impression from many of your past postings that there are a handful of conceptual errors in your understanding of the traditional application of negative feedback and its Nyquist stability criteria . . . to the point that a discussion of the associated theory and measurement performance is moot.

Yes, I imagine when one has a different viewpoint, it is convenient to use such an argument. I *am* familiar with Fourier, Shannon and Nyquist, FWIW. However I see a lot of their 'relevant' theorem as being misapplied in audio. The problem here is that while theorem is supposed, there are real-world phenomena that do not care about the theorem. When you realize that the real world isn't going to go away, often it is more pragmatic to observe it and accept that it exists.

Now I would exhort you to take a look at Chaos Theory as well,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

and having done that read Norman Crowhurst's book on negative feedback and amplifiers, called Basic Audio. You can download volume 3 as a pdf from
http://www.pmillett.com/tubebooks/technical_books_online.htm

In volume three, page 26 Crowhurst graphed the behavior of an amplifier with feedback (Nyquist diagram) that years later Choas Theory identifies as a 'strange attractor' (strange attractors are used to predict the behavior of a chaotic system). You will also see that the formula for feedback and chaotic systems are pretty much the same thing.

But I (very respectfully) remain curious as to whether or not you've ever had an auditory experience that pegs the needle on your own personal, internal "sonic truthiness" scale? And has it ever been delivered by equipment that has a design approach that's incongruous with your own? (Please note that the phrase "pegs the needle" is an important one, meaning that at the time of the experience, an experience closer to the truth cannot be imagined and/or is simply irrelevant).

Of course, and I mentioned exactly this rather early on. So I am one who maintains that we are closer to 90% than 5%, insofar as microphones, headphones and simple audio electronics (no power amps or speakers) are concerned. I made the point at that time that the recording/playback media is arguably the biggest failing.

I have had multiple experiences like this in the studio, and I have had a few like this at home with my stereo (but they don't qualify due to your criteria). My comment about the ramifications of that has already been posted and misquoted.

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.

Phaelon,
I agree with you that the thread is going in an interesting direction. KIrkus and others have broadened my understanding of the topic tremendously. It was not my intent to peg a specific percentage to the question of how close are we to the real thing beyond that I think 5% is too low in the context of today's very "best" systems.

Has Edseas heard a really great recording on one of today's great systems? He told me he hadn't. Can we agree that we are at least getting closer to the real thing? From reading many of the posts, I think the answer for many of us is YES. Sorry for your head, Mapman.

Sitting here listening, as I type this, to Michel Camilo's Solo album (Telarc Jazz) at something like a realistic volume level... if this is 5% of live, I'll take it as-is and be happy for a long while.

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, Ed, I don't think anyone said an occasional note sounded live, but only an occasional recording. Most of my recordings contain more than one note. ;)

FWIW, I don't think the Camilo sounds live on my system. Very nice, but not live. Too syrupy. Not enough edge. I think it's those Sennheiser mikes I bitched at Jack Renner about many years ago ('80s), when he started using them for Telarc classical recording. And they really don't work for Jazz, IMHO.

As for the one billion notes, well, maybe. Assuming 100 musicians playing 40 hours per week, all quarter notes :), for 20 years, that's about 1.1 billion notes or so. But that's 40 continuous hours per week, every second of every minute, of every hour. Maybe he rounded up.

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

Atmasphere,

The problem here is that while theorem is supposed, there are real-world phenomena that do not care about the theorem.

I'm sorry, I don't quite follow. Yes, if you use Spice, say, to examine behaviour just based on straightforward theory, it will most certainly not match what really happens. However, if you add in ALL the actual parasitic behaviours of the components, the "real-world phenomena" you mention, into the Spice model then there should be very good agreement between the model (theory) and reality. After all, one of the classic nonsenses of a typical Spice circuit are the perfect voltage sources stuck where needed -- that alone guarantees that the match can be very poor.

In volume three, page 26 Crowhurst ...

Sorry, had a quick look, as far as I can see he is just saying, be careful with negative feedback, otherwise it becomes positive feedback and you have an oscillator -- straightforward stuff.

Frank

Fredseas2,

You banged the one note on my kids' upright piano and then compared it to a recording of a concert grand, as I remember. I agree with you that that one note did not sound identical to any one of the many notes in the recording. It wasn't even really close. But the recording certainly resembled the sound of a piano, and it wasn't a particularly good recording and it certainly was not one of the "best" systems available.

At this past RMAF I heard a live piano recital in the hotel lobby and then heard Ray Kimber's incredible four channel system play one of his IsoMic? recordings of a piano. Not identical, but boy were they similar to my ears.

Well, Edseas2, I'm so glad that your view settles everything, after all! And of course, you have the BAS to back you up. And to think we've created a thread five pages long discussing a conclusion we could have just asked you for. :)

Merry Christmas, Ed.

Merry Christmas everyone, enjoy your families, see you back in the threads... Tim

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

Fas42, on that page you will see a pattern diagram. I pointed this out as it is an example of a strange attractor.

Now what Chaos Theory has to say about this confirms what Crowhurst has pointed out in various places in his writings:

By the use of feedback in an amplifier there will be a harmonic noise floor (bifurcation) injected into the output of the amplifier. The amplifier will thus exhibit stable and chaotic behaviors.

The harmonic noise floor is inherently different from that of a noise floor composed of hiss. Our ears can hear about 20 db into the latter but none into the former. So the effect in an amplifier with loop feedback is that low level detail will be truncated and this is readily audible (IME) as a loss of ambient and soundstage information.

So its my opinion that you want the amplifier to behave in a way to more closely adhere to the rules of human hearing. I am adamant that the rules of human hearing trump all other considerations. In this case the masking rule of human hearing is where the problem is: we can't hear into that harmonic noise floor. Ridding the amplifier of negative feedback takes care of this and also rids you of the problem of making the slight amount of odd-ordered distortion that is part of that noise floor.

So you kill two birds with one stone, but you introduce another problem- how to get rid of lower-ordered harmonic distortion, which can also mask detail. The ear will hear this as a warmth, bloom or fatness in the lower registers and some people do find it annoying because the coloration can be obvious. BTW, this is something tubes are very prone to.

So IMO/IME, you have to do everything you can do eliminate distortion without feedback. That can be a bit of a trick and there is no one single design panacea for that.

Atmasphere,

I am adamant that the rules of human hearing trump all other considerations

Agree 100%.

So the effect in an amplifier with loop feedback is that low level detail will be truncated and this is readily audible (IME) as a loss of ambient and soundstage information

Unfortunately, disagree 100%. IF the feedback is done badly or is extremely minimal in its effect then that may be the result. I agree that "low level detail is truncated" is often the way distortion manifests, but my experience is that this is lousy power supplies and a myriad of other subtle mechanisms causing problems, which insufficient feedback may struggle to compensate for, but only ends up making things worse. In other words, the overall engineering of EVERYTHING has to be got right, and then that "harmonic noise floor" you speak of will be reduced to a level well below audibility

Frank

Look at a concert. Any concert. Chances are they have horn tweeters and midrange speakers and a big woofer in a speaker array. You get NO IMAGING. Stereo is a imaging experience that make one think he is in a studio not a hall,if you want a loud wall of sound get horn speakers. If you want the studio sound get non horn.

Vernneal, consider that at a concert imaging in the PA is not important. You may well be listening to mono.

Horns have no trouble doing imaging, that's for sure. There are other threads that have covered this subject.

Fas42, I agree completely about the power supplies. In fact I run a separate power supply with its own power transformer for the driver section of our amplifiers. The idea is to prevent any sort of noise that might occur in the output section from having any influence on the driver. This is one of the ways to really reduce IM distortion, as the power supply noise issues are usually modulation issues, but the effect is less pronounced for THD.

And I also agree that the engineering has to be right- you are absolutely correct that there are a ton of variables that affect any design and its easy for a problem in just one of those variables to completely overshadow other design parameters. IMO right here is where you encounter the human element in design.

Y'all have a nice holiday!!

Well, if you play a musical instrument vs. listen to sound, they are obviously very different things!
IMO nothing can aproach the connection you get to the music with playing - even listening in a concert hall. Any electronic copy and reproduction will always fall short.

Mikewerner, while I agree, this doesn't mean that one cannot get closer. I have heard speakers that are very easy to listen to but which are not at all realistic sounding.

That's a thoughtful reply.
Does the real thing have to be real?
What are the goals?
I think feeling the presence of live music is different, and being within it is even more so.
Do you ever sing in church? How does that feel? Is it live?
To me there is no percentage comparison. They are different things. Maybe that is what such a low 5% ranking is about from "The Violist."

I know how a lot of you all feel about BOSE on this forum BUT I think the new and improved BOSE 901 series 6 mk2's gets you really close to the "real thing"...LIVE MUSIC!.

How close is a lap dance to the real thing?
Oops!
Honestly, lately I feel this is like pornography. Here we sit, bring it on!

Regarding sound, at least the frequencies that humans can hear, anything is possible today with enough knowledge, focus and a budget.

Regarding live sound, the hardest part to reproduce at home is the venue. No two venues are exactly the same, public or at home. So you are always working with that handicap. Otherwise, it is not so hard to get very lifelike sound out of recordings designed to sound that way.

Getting the exact perfect sound that you like all the time is not possible unless you are also making your own recordings.

Its like Hanna Davis and Kate Upton. Or ever see Ronda Rousey out on a photo shoot versus prepping for a fight? WHich is the most perfect?

I believe a Very Large Part Of It has to do with the Frontal Horizontal Directivity Measurements of the speakers! The better the measurements, the closer your get to... LIVE MUSIC IN YOUR HOME!!

http://www.princeton.edu/3D3A/Directivity.html

I think a Very Large Part of It (VLPoI) has to do with a Very Large Number of Things (VLNoT).
Impulse Response tells it all in an ideal amplifier. See "Linear Time Invariant Systems."
In a room, controlled dispersion is very important.
Then, there is my mood! Who can tell?
As for all of the Super Models and Prize Fighters, I've never had one in my lap, though my wife sure is real!

With the same speakers and electronics, I have heard great differences in realism with the same recordings. Of late I am hearing greatly more ambiance and note decay with double DSD versus 44.1 PCM on many different recordings. All this means, of course is that the filters have been moved upward to nearly 100k Hz. Also, I've heard the benefits of having linear power supplies rather than the cheap switching supplies so common in our electronics.

I have also heard greater realism using the Tripoint Troy with the new Thor SE grounding cables that keep RFI and EMI out of the signal. Subtleties in the music and background are revealed once the garbage is removed.

I've also heard the importance of what my components sit on. Two different technologies dominate the field, IMHO. Stillpoints converts vertical vibrations into heat and Star Sound takes the vibrations to ground rapidly with the use of a mix of brass and steel. I hear brass and high hat as well as drums sounding better with the Star Sound and more of a sense of ease with the Stillpoints.

Finally, there are magnets in cabling. High Fidelity Cables has shown me that the more the better using magnets. These cables have dramatically revealed realism for me that I once thought was impossible. Each and every version of these cables have increased the number of magnets used, the price, and the realism.

Would Iever go back to what I was listening to just three years ago? Not unless I was very curious as to how bad it was then.

Obviously this is a silly question but..... What kind of live music and in what setting? a symphony? dont even get me going. the reflected sounds and omni directional noise coming form the instruments is simply never going to be replicated that well. we listen to a representation of live music, not live music of course. We can sit in a concert hall and listen to the loudest mahler or wagner and never fatigue or feel strained . our biology knows real naturally produced sound when it hears it and there is no effort by the brain to correct it. some of these posts have said as much. other than that we are arguing over who has better mechanics.

Veroman, I think there is much more to it than you say, such as ambience, note decay, sharp leading edge, human noises, timbre of instruments, but this is a senseless argument. I seldom buy seats that would give me the perspective that the mikes enjoy.

I don't live in a big city but used to attend meetings in Chicago and sought to buy returned seats in the center and front of Chicago's orchestral hall for the Chicago Symphony performances. I also heard many jazz singers performing there. My university has a very poor theater. The only good seats are in the front three rows. I've heard symphony performances, musicals, opera, jazz groups, and rock groups there. Frankly, my home system save for the visual perspective is better than those at the university.

My greatly improved music reproduction is largely based on vibration control, better grounding, ics and other cables, power cords and other ac conditioning, and digital sound source.