Musicians in your living room vs. you in the recording hall?

prof:
"We developed directionality in our hearing for a reason, and it really works! (At least mine does, at the concert hall)."


rodman99999: 
I guess, back when it was a survival skill: some wouldn’t have.



Agreed.  Many audiophiles seem simply unprepared to survive a sudden attack from a symphony orchestra!  ;-)

If I had to pick: transported to the hall.

But depending on the recording, even in a "transported to the hall" set up, it can sound like musicians brought in to your room (e.g. dry, up-front recording).

The problem with seeking the transported-to-hall version is it tends to place an emphasis on soundstaging/imaging, especially creating the character of an expanded, deep space.  All too often set ups that seem to achieve this do so at the expense of a somewhat more wispy presentation.  All those far away instruments seem to lack palpability and impact.  (Cue everyone here "not in MY set up!"...)


I'm always trying to balance the two: soundstaging with guts and palpability.

viridian wrote:

Neither, I go to quite a few live concerts, both classical and popular. I don’t hear imaging and soundstaging in the concert hall, so I certainly don’t want it in my listening room.

I'm always amazed when someone writes that.

If we are talking amplified music, well then ok.   And if imaging/soundstag isn't someone's bag, I get that too.


But this notion that unamplified instruments and voices don't image/soundstage, including orchestras, is really strange to me.  I totally get imaging/soundstaging from live music, orchestras included. 



This week I stopped to listen to several different busker groups playing on the street.  Every time I closed my eyes and whether I was near or far, they imaged like a lazer, totally easily to place, I could point right at them.


We developed directionality in our hearing for a reason, and it really works! (At least mine does, at the concert hall).

Jim,

Like you, I disagree with glupson on this issue. Probably more strenuously.


For me live music is anything but bland in character. Just the opposite, I’m usually overwhelmed by how much richer live music is than any home stereo system produces. An orchestra through any pair of speakers I’ve heard, no matter how expensive, is homogenized relative to the scope of timbral beauty in the real thing.

In fact, I have found even live amplified sound can often sound richer and better than anything I’ve heard from an audiophile sound system, so long as the equipment used is good.

When I played in a band we used to use a really nice sound system and even my keyboards had such attach and sonic richness through the sound system. Same went for the drums, or guitar etc. None of our recordings played back on even the best speakers I had truly re-created this. It was always a disappointment to here the recordings, vs the live sound.   That’s the same for a great many live shows I’ve attended - not necessarily the massive stadium shows, but in a reasonably sized venue - a decent concert hall for instance - the sound was amazing. I’m thinking of a Pat Metheny concert where I was just glorying in the kaleidoscope of sound coming at me live - nothing on record ever touched it.