Most Realistic Recordings


I was recently listening to my daughter practice the piano and I was enjoying quite a full-body sonic experience. I later went to my system and picked out a few piano recordings that I suspected were recorded well, but as I listened, I just didn't have anything close to the same experience. The piano just didn't sound right, nor nearly as full as I had just experienced while listening to my daughter. I know what pianos sound and feel like. I grew up playing many different types and understand their differences. I've done some research on recording pianos and have learned they are particularly difficult to record well.

As I've delved deeper into this audio hobby/interest and acquired more respectable gear, the more general question that keeps coming to my mind is this: How did this music sound at the time it was recorded? (presuming it was a person playing an instrument, not something "mixed" or electronic). Meaning, if I had been in the room, would I have heard or felt the same? Or is there something about the recording setup/micing/mixing/etc. that has failed to capture the moment? Or has the audio engineer intentionally filtered some of that out?

Now, being an audiophile (i.e., a music lover) has many paths and many goals. For me, I love lots of different kinds of music and am not too caught up in the ever changing landscape of audio gear and the need to try something new. I hope to get to the point where a well-captured recording sounds realistic in my room on my system. I like full-spectrum sound (i.e., if the note/sound is in the track, I want to hear it). I know that accurate, realistic reproduction through any system is depends a great deal on the equipment and the room it's being played back in. I don't expect my system to give me that jaw-dropping "I'm there" experience (yet), but some day I hope to get there.

So, to my question above, I would very much love to hear if anyone feels they have heard an album, a track, a recording of some kind that could be used to test out the "realism" of one's system. What would you say is a recording that more accurately captured the sonic hologram of the moment it was performed. Any genre is ok. And if you think a particular studio/company does this well, I'd love to hear about it!

And, please, I don't want the conversation to about gear or room treatment. This is about the recording itself, the source material, and how accurately the entire moment is captured and preserved. I respect everyone's personal experiences with your system, whatever it's comprised of. So, please don't argue with each other about whether a recording didn't sound realistic to you when it sounded realistic to someone else. Let's be civil and kind, for how can you deny what someone else's ears have heard? Thank you! I'm excited to learn from you all!

tisimst
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A very nice thread! I think nobody so far has mentioned „Midnight Sugar“ by the Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio , recorded 1974 in Tokyo, and published by the label TBM = three blind mice (TBM-23). You can get it in various media forms from vinyl to  CD or SACD (don‘t know about streaming) - it sounds always spectacular. Probably the „best  and most realistic sounding“ piano recording. By the way, it‘s Jazz. It‘s worth a listening for all audiophiles if you‘re not familiar with it.

In a batch response - Mapleshaderecords.com. I will not go into all the ins and outs of the founder, company and recordings, but in my humble opinion, some of the most "real" and analogue-like sounding digital recordings.available.

@upsman 

 

I must agree. I remember buying a couple of them and really being Happily surprised. I then bought most every one that sounded ever remotely interesting. 


I recommended to a friend… who’s system was not all that great and he pointed out that the music wasn’t that great. I hadn’t noticed because the recordings were so amazing…

 

I’ll have to pull a couple of those out and resisted to,them.

 

Realistic to what?  A live performance or a recording stage/studio recording?  They are so different.  I want to hear what the engineer engraved on a record or cd (or RR tape).  What I don't want it a modern, phasey, distant, over-reverberant recording.   What I want to hear in my home listening room is a performance recorded into the microphones that makes sense.  Why record a flute in the middle a concert hall (or any other smaller instrument or vocal that way).  I want immediacy to connect to the performance.   My system is high end and most of my friends have similar excellent systems which reproduce the performance and sound at the mics.   We all (about half of dozen, including a known remastering engineer) seek recordings that we can connect with, not the type previously distained.  

One can start with 78s which are direct discs.  What they lack in sound quality (frequency response, harmonic richness) they often make up in performance quality (single take) excitement and dynamic contrasts to bring one to the horn or microphone.