I won't say that my hi-fi fools me into thinking Led Zeppelin is performing in my listening room, we are a long way from that. A long long way. What I will say is that we are enjoying the art of recording. The process of recording a performance or a created sonic work of art made to be played back on a hi-fi system (or a car radio for that matter).
How much “suspension of disbelief do you need?”
We (or most of us) believe that it’s very difficult if not impossible to hear an exact representation of the the sound of a live performance on a recording.
The question is how much do you have to delude yourself into thinking it’s the real thing your listening to, to satisfy yourself.
To some it has to to be as close as possible. But others can make allowances for defects in the sound in order to enjoy the presentation.
‘How much do you need?
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Big difference between live and studio recordings. Most recordings were not mastered to sound live. More likely to sell, for a car, jukebox, boom box, Echo etc. The recording industry started off mono which could NEVER sound live unless you lost an ear. (Upside the head Murray style?) (Firecracker in a phone booth?) (.44M in a basement?) (Blue Cheer?) Is Adele in the room? You ARE deluded. That’s the beauty of Direct to Disk. How ya doin’ guys? |
If I listen to a wonderful recording of a string quartet playing late Beethoven there is no close your eyes moment for me and you're there because I know it is false , nice to listen to yes but I'd still rather be in The Queen's Hall in Edinburgh and listening to the real thing because that experience can't be beaten. |
Obviously a recording can never reproduce the dynamics of a live performance. Who in their right mind would expect to have a full symphony orchestra crammed into their room. Even if it was possible it'd sound horrible. |
Actually, I do get that “in the room” experience very often with my system, with vocals, with solo guitar, sometimes with piano. Always late at night. Never with larger ensembles, which wouldn’t fit in my listening room. But with any musicians who could, yes, they do sound like they’re right in front of me. . Good equipment and the right speakers placed correctly. Took me 20 years of churning and tweaking gear and a yacht’s worth of money to get there, but yes, |
I am pretty deluded and very disappointed but not with my HIFI. I've been to two Los Lobos concerts the first at the zoo (outside) was the second best I've ever attended. My most recent was the second worst I've ever attended. The sound guy must have been deaf. The amps were over driven into distortion, The mix was terrible and the vocals piercing and I was pretty much unable to distinguish the words. I ended up stuffing my ears with tissues just to be able to stay in the hall. If my stereo sounded like that I would have it in for repair. The night before at dinner there was a trio female singer, Ubase and guitar which actually sounded pretty good. It was correctly amplified and sounded good. My stereo is pretty close to that. I need to work on tightening up the bass but it doesn't take all that much to reproduce amplified music. Good quality HIFI amps and speakers are usually better sounding than pro audio and the studio microphones used in recordings are usually better than the ones used for live performances. For the live experience I just have to delude myself that their are people behind me either sing along or talk during the performance. |
Add to ^that^ That a lot of bands in concert are disappointing “sound wise”, compared to the studio album. |
It depends . I suspect the reproduction quality needed to suspend belief every time you hear a 'better' system. I recall stories of live/recorded demos in the 19 teens with frequency response of old telephones and many participants were heard to be amazed saying they couldn't hear a difference. Expectation has a lot to do with it. |
Well, actually I HAVE had a 30-piece concert band, along with 45 audience members, in my living/family room, thanks to an open floor plan and 12-foot ceilings. Trust me, it can get loud. Plus having permanent tinnitus from playing in big bands for many decades gives me a pretty good idea of what live sound is. And I don't stress a bit over whether I can reproduce that in my living room. Life is too short. |
I just want to enjoy the music any way I can. Live, recorded, in my home, in my car, out in public I just want to enjoy the music. You keep claiming and starting the same posts as your standard for a music lover needs to be a live performance. That is a very subjective view that you are entitled to but your view does not have to be the standard for all others. Actually live performances can be a crap shoot as to the quality of said performance. There are 100’s of factors that could influence not only the end sound but also the performance of the musicians. If you think your listening skills are superior to all others and only you can hear that difference goid for you. The rest of us will just enjoy the music the way we like it, |
Certainly recording dependent to some extent. Close miked intimate high resolution recordings sure bring performers in room. Large scale classical orchestras not so much.
Also has much to do with imaging, sound stage system able to reproduce.
For me, this is aspect of performance that should improve with ever increasing levels of resolution system able to reproduce. |
Listening to a live Led Zeppelin concert is an automatic disappointment. Why aspire to that??? You’d be listening to pro amps, pro speakers, mixed by a guy who was 3 sheets to the wind only 2 hours before, through god-only-knows what stage speakers….. Nope. Not for me. Live concert is the very last thing I want! |
Waiting For Columbus is good. Dissimilar to when I saw ’em at the Riviera. Excellent point that the live PA mix was/is mono. Unless you are fifth row seats like I got for ZZ in ’74, that’s all you hear at a reinforced show. The point is why would one want to trick themselves into thinking that a Cosmic Crisp is a blood orange? "You got to keep ’em seperated." Unless pretending works for you. The only goal for me is to enjoy the music. |
sgreg1, ”If you think your listening skills are superior to all others and only you can hear that difference goid for you. The rest of us will just enjoy the music the way we like it,” I don’t know where you get that impression. I’ve never said or implied that. |
Yes, I want the instruments and voice to sound real. Realism is vital for me. I have had a good measure of it over the past decade. This increases my enjoyment and immersion into the music. Can hardly think of a sonic attribute more important…at least for me.
This realism helps my system sound like the performers are right in my room. I get this experience with many jazz and vocal recordings. Rickie Lee Jones - Naked Songs is an example. No, cannot get there as well with large orchestral recordings. |
Have you ever looked at a painting and thought, ’I know it’s a painting but it’s more beautiful than real life’? That’s what art can do. Mics can be placed on the bottom and top heads of drums in a studio. In a concert, that just won’t happen. So there IS potential to ’get more’ from recording than one might get from a live concert. I haven’t heard it yet...lol. But let’s not say it’s impossible just yet. |
No such thing as an 'exact representation' anyway. From what vantage point? The sound will be different for every one.... 2 feet from the performer will not sound like 15 feet from the performer. Orchestra level will not sound like the balcony. Go with what sounds good to you and don't worry about representing anything 'exactly'. |
It seems some who don't care about, or have abandoned any semblance to the real thing can't grok why anyone else would care. Here's my approach: The reason I got in to high end audio was having some life-changing encounters with audio systems, where the music sounded more "real" than I ever imagined it could (e.g. when a pal bought Quad ESL 63s and I came over for a listen, I was just shocked at the sensation of an acoustic guitar, a violin etc just sounding like it was performing RIGHT THERE, not even seeming to come from speakers, and with a measure of realistic timbre and detail that astounded me. My first real audiophile purchase became the Quad ESL 63s (and later added subwoofers). So one of the things that attracted me to high end audio in the first place was a semblance of accuracy and realism, in particularly timbre. I can enjoy music on anything - my car stereo, our smart speaker in the kitchen, I even love it coming from my iphone speaker! But what I get from my 2 channel system is not only just the musical content, but I get more: I get the sensuousness of the sound itself. I get *some* of the dynamics and timbral character that I find so involving in live instruments. If someone is playing an acoustic guitar (or if I'm playing mine) I can just sit there and drink it in, not only for the music, but for the sensuousness and richness of the harmonics, dynamics, the sound "quality." Any system that gives me at least some of that is one that I simply enjoy more. As for believability, like most I'm quite aware my system will never sound just like the real thing. And I also listen to lots of music that isn't even made from acoustic instruments. But I do find that if my system captures certain aspects that I like in real sound sources, it's more satisfying AND it helps me sink in to the "illusion of live" more easily, when I want that. So for instance, my system will never reproduce the acoustic presence, dynamics and power of real drums. But so long as it recreates certain elements that I love about real drums - e.g. when drum snares have that recognizable papery organic "snap" rather than sounding like some thick burst of white noise -that is both "more right sounding" and more satisfying. It also lets me sink in to the illusion of hearing through the speakers to a performance, when I'm in that mindset. Plus, I find when a system sounds timbrally and dynamics more towards the "real thing" with acoustic sounds, it is also more satisfying with ALL the music I listen to, including electronic music. But back to the realism thing, in those instances where I indulge more in the illusion, to me it's an attitude similar to watching a movie in a movie theater (or on my projection screen). The movie is never going to recreate reality - the image is flat, it doesn't have full color and contrast and detail like the real thing, there's all sorts of artifice in film making, just as there is in music made in studios. But the reason many movies (at least those striving for believability) take some pains to get SOME things more like real life - e.g. the script, the acting, the set design - is because when you get certain elements more like the real thing, it helps the viewer sink in to the illusion of reality created by the film. The viewer is willing to do his part in suspension of belief, and it's helped by some verisimilitude on the part of the film makers (and on the quality of the viewer's own home theater system should that be the case). Same with my approach to a system that gets some aspects routinely "more like the real thing." I was listening to a symphonic recording of the Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back. It was simply startling in how vivid and powerful it sounded. Now, the last thing one might expect an average system to reproduce realistically would be an orchestra. But my systems reproduced the timbre of strings, woodwinds and horns very much as I think they sound in real life. And even if my memory is wrong, or imperfect, it's only MY perception and memory that I have to fool. So with eyes closed, I just had to make a little mental adjustment for scale. The spread of the symphony created by my Thiel speakers was quite large, but certainly smaller than if I were sitting right in front of a real symphony. But if I just made a little mental adjustment, and envisioned I was sitting at the back of the hall or from the balcony, suddenly the scale of the symphony clicked in to "believable" and frankly it was amazing how easy it was to get the illusion of sitting in a hall listening to a real symphony. And that only added to the thrill of the music itself.
So...I certainly get the attitude "I don't bother looking for realism, it's an impossible goal and I just want to hear whatever the recording sounds like and I'm happy." But those of us who still use real life sound as a sort of north star or barometer haven't plunged ourselves in to perpetual dissatisfaction or are doing so in some unrealistic goal. Approached sensibly with realistic expectations, our systems can be deeply satisfying, having been somewhat guided by what we like in real life sounds. |
Not expecting reality but just certain aspects of it. For me it mostly comes down to smooth extended frequency response on and off axis with minimal background noise and the ability to get fairly loud without excessive distortion, and an appropriate amount of room reverberation. Like others have said it can actually be better than reality a lot of the time. With ambient sounds that might plausibly be happening in or around my house my system can truly deceive me at times. |
+1 @fuzztone This really cracked me up... "If he can’t get blasted without raising a stink he’s in the wrong century." Regards, barts |
Yes, SELF DECEPTION is the point. This suspension of DIS belief helps create a feeling of the real thing. Just like in a movie or play. We know what’s happening on the screen or stage is not actually taking place but we suspend our disbelief so that we can think we’re witnessing something real. |
I disagree. I think the parallels work. Just like music tracks span the gamut of "acoustic sources recorded naturalistically" to "completely artificial, including electronic music," movies span the gamut of "fantastical" like the superhero movies to movies that seek "realism" (e.g.Cinéma vérité ).
And between those there is plenty of effort that go in to making a movie "believable."
If you have an average drama with a doctor in a hospital, for instance, in general the film makers will seek to mimic some semblance of the real world "would a doctor really say that?" "Does this really look like the inside of an operating room?" "What type of furniture, medical machinery would be present?" etc. I do that when selecting which sounds I'm going to put in to the scene. All that is due to the way people will naturally be referencing what they know of reality. I work in Film and TV, and there is a hell of a lot of effort put in to scripts, acting, sets, sound design, etc to make things more believable.
I just finished doing the sound design for a series that took place in the old west. There’s a reason I didn’t put in the sound of jets flying past, or modern cars.
So people go to movies knowing it won’t be real life, but film makers understand that if they get certain things more accurate to real life on the screen - if that’s what they are seeking - it helps the believability the suspension of disbelief, for the audience.
As I said, same with audio. No need to approach it expecting reproduction indistinguishable from real, but many of us find that if certain aspects of how things really sound are there, it can be satisfying and give something of an illusion of hearing the real thing.
(I’ve played my system for numerous non-audiophile guests, and the most common comment is "wow, it sounds real. Like I’m hearing the musicians play right there in the studio.")
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Really depends on the venue. Some music venues have outstanding sound, others not so much. Also depends on where your seats are. I've been in the 3rd row and the sound is so-so. Next night a few rows back and the stereo and definition of the instruments was much better. I always have good sound at home, assuming the recording is a good one. |
