neutrality vs. realism

Ok, this thread has not been as interesting or funny as I expected. The essential problem is that stereo doesnt do real life. It's a 2 dimensional medium. So, you can either strive for neutrality, each component adding to or subtracting from the signal as little as possible, and listen to what the recording engineers intended. Or you can play with frequency response to try to make things three dimensional and flesh things out and sound realistic.

I read a review of a preamp a year or two ago that I thought was strange. The reviewer said it sounded different from his reference, but couldnt say which was right. Then he said it sounded different from no preamp, cdp straight into the amp, which would seem to suggest it was not neutral. The he said it sounded more like the real life performance he had just attended than either his reference or no preamp at all.

Some time ago, Carver Corporation marketed a preamp with a "sonic holography" circuit. What was that? Just an equalization from flat, or deviation from neutral, in order to sound more like real life.

A famous guy who quit hi-fi (and who I won't name) said: "Audiophiles don't give a damn about whether their systems sound like real music as long as it pleases them. It was inevitable, though, when the vast majority of music-lovers never hear live, unamplified music to compare their playback with." I think that's the answer to the original query above.

Althouh I dont really care if my system measures flat, so long as it sounds to me like the real life voices of my favorite performers (or the real life sounds of specific instruments), I think I like all of my equipment because it is neutral. I think it sounds like real life because each component is as neutral as it can be and either the recording engineers did a really good job or I seem to somehow fill in the blanks.

That's the only way we can make any progress, if every one has the same goal of neutrality. All of the high-end stuff that doesnt aim for neutrality leads us astray.

Oh Mike, I dont disagree with you at all. I get a lot of enjoyment out of my stereo system too. And I even think I get a sense of that palpable 3 dimensional presence stuff. But really, all you have is left and right, and from that you can derive depth. But, the sense that the sound is coming from 3 dimensional performers spread around a soundstage is an illusion or an artifice. Of course, if you close your eyes in a real live performance, can you tell how fat the soloist is?

A friend said this: "when you listen to a stereo you are listening to two channels creating a virtual image at a listening position in the room. It is radiating quite differently from a live stage of instruments and it is attempting to achieve a very limited result: a facsimile at your head. The representation of a stage of instruments at the virtual stage in front of you is very inaccurate. In stereo there are two speakers emitting one instrument as opposed to a live event where each instrument has one source region. Having it sound live will only happen rarely by coincidental alignment of factors and even then it won't be fidelity to the original event, it will only have a sense of generic aliveness."

That illusion of generic aliveness is what I think you and I are enjoying from our stereo systems. Especially when we are listening to a favorite vocalist.

Regards,

Paul

The lack of a live reference is a problem, sort of. I just picked up and played the new Alison Krauss and Union Station Live cd - really enjoyed it (I'm a fan not a critic). Here's the thing: it's a live recording that you listen to through your speakers in your home. The music goes into the mics, into the mixers and electronic equipment, onto the cd, back through your cdp and amp and then through your speakers. Sounds better to me than listening to the singer and band in a typical large venue through those big p-a speakers, whatever they are.

I do have a live reference for Alison and band, though it's from quite a few years back and I am losing brain cells day by day. I heard her at a small venue in LA, real close up (like less than 10 ft). She did an acapella unamplified second encore of "I Will" that was one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. We talked afterwards too. I've heard other bluegrass and folk groups unamplified, some other types of performers too. So there can be a live reference for some kinds of pop music.

But you're right that, in general, nearly all pop/rock recordings are sort of arbitrary constructs. Yet, within each recording there are components, voices and instruments that do have live referents. If we've ever heard them, and if we can only remember them.

Lots of problems, but our minds just seem to fill in a lot of blanks.

Asa, actually most of the people I know who aim for an accurate frequency response do not do so in the interest of excessive detail. Rather, they find audiophiles perverse because audiophiles tolerate frequency response aberrations in the midrange and tend to like an elevated high end with lots of detail, e.g., the early famously popular moving coil cartridges. Pros who strive for accuracy tend to use the live concert hall as a model. In electronics, they want complete accuracy. In speakers, they aim for a flat frequency response from bass through upper midrange, and a somewhat downward sloping upper end to approximate what happens in real life. That sort of accuracy is generally musical. Speakers that are ruler flat in the treble off axis as well as on can be sort of relentless in real world rooms.

The members of the accuracy school with whom I am familiar regard excessive detail as unnatural and an inaccurate representation of live music. It's in the midrange that accuracy is paramount.

There are people who like amps that are demonstrably inaccurate in the bass and midrange. Maybe because their speakers are inaccurate in some complementary way, or maybe they just like a mellow sound. I dont know.

It's an old-fashioned idea, one that has been ridiculed in Stereophile, but I want my electronic components to do nothing to the signal but pass it along. Any deviation from a flat frequency response, and distortion, and character like grain or hardness (which I think can be explained by some small deviations from a perfect frequency reponse), I don't like - unless it's in a portion of the frequency spectrum where it doesnt really hurt, e.g., a little added warmth, a little less presence giving more of a sense of depth or outside of my hearing range. I think accuracy is important, because accurate components allow designers and users to focus on what needs to be improved. This idea that everything sounds different and needs to be matched with their components synergistically is a saleman's boon, and a bore. A perfectly accurate system still needs help with room interaction.

Yet, we fill in the blanks, and tolerate, as you suggest, a variety of inaccuracies, mostly subtractive deficiencies rather than additive. (It's hard to ignore an excess of energy in any part of the frequency range, except maybe the mid bass. It's hard to ignore noise and distortion components.) We are especially adept at filling-in, completing patterns, finishing sentences, and I think that the part of our brain that processes sounds does the same thing.

Now to your really interesting McLuhan-esque idea, an experience or replication of the absolute sound through the listener's interaction with his system. We know that stereo can't recreate the live event, it can only make a suggestion (Like Michelangelo's last works in marble, which some might think unfinished). Yet, some of us sit there and feel very much like we are in the presence of our favorite performers.

That's my objective.

I think I agree with you that musical components, good components, are those that "sufficiently catalyze the mind" to complete the pattern. And I would add that do not give false cues that might lead to an unrealistic picture.

Regards,

Paul

What a nice man.

Actually, Asa, I am usually of two minds about just about everything, so on any given day, we might not have any differences at all.

As far as science goes, (this is a gross oversimplification of the systems approach) some try to analyze a leaf by cutting it up and looking at it under a microscope. I look at the tree.

I have a couple of email acquaintances who are always at odds with each other. One a pure subjectivist with no scientific or engineering training who really does not know how sound is recorded, stored and transmitted. The other a well-known math professor who really does know a lot about the science and engineering of audio reproduction. Both of them arrived at the same speakers (Harbeth Monitor 40's - I have smaller Harbeths) as The Truth. Most of the time, I agree with the professor that everything we can hear can be explained by things we already know.

Ernie (Subaruguru) and Muralman, thnak you, but you should give credit to Asa for the catalyzation idea as well as the notion of sufficency.

Ernie, you've really opened a can of worms with the first arrival/second arrival problem. From a designer acquaintance (a scientific objectivist, Asa): "we don't have complete accuracy available as of yet. We may have accuracy on one dimension, such as axial frequency response, but not have accuracy in another dimension, such as sound field arrival vector/intensity accuracy." Moreover, "angle of arrival has much to do with perceived tonal balance. While the data can be gathered there is no established perceptual index for percentage of program intensity per program angle of arrival, even though it plays a very significant role in perceived accuracy. This of course includes boundary effects, timing/phase cues as well as angle of incidence. The perceived summation is quite complex." (These are not my ideas, so don't give me credit for them.)

So, Asa, I think that frequency response is all important in accurately reproducing the recorded event. The caveats are that (1) a perfectly accurate on-axis frequency response may not result in accuracy at your ears in your listening room, and (2) you may find a dollop of sweetness or a rounded edge or a little tweaking with presence for soundstaging effects more pleasing to your ears. (I might too.)

There are lots of other things to measure besides on-axis response; dispersion, off-axis response of speakers, cabinet resonance in speakers, jitter in cdps, amplifier performance into real loads, etc. I think everything that can be heard can be measured. The trick is using the measurements to predict what the listener will experience in his chair in his room.

Asa, the important issues you bring up deserve more thought and discussion, especially considering the secondary (and tertiary, etc.) arrival problems Ernie raises. Is it possible that there is a level of sufficiency that is preferable to complete accuracy in the real world, in order to minimize some of the problems with secondary arrivals? Is it possible that too much auditory information may be a detriment?

Of course, I think I have said, or at least implied, that I really do prefer a little built in loudness compensation on the bottom for warmth and a little (not much, just a tad) of roll-off at the top. My favorite speakers also employ a BBC or Grundee dip centered around 3khz to move centered vocalists back just a bit in the soundstage. I think these deviations from a flat frequency response yield greater realism, that is they conform to what I hear in real life. But, those are just my preferences.

Paul