Yes, studio recordings are frequently surreal either by intent (art) or bad engineering. What I mean by accuracy is the ability to reproduce live instruments, usually acoustic but not necessarily, in timbre, size and location. Concerts via PA systems are not a modality you can judge a system by other than the ability to produce accurate bass and dynamics, which very few systems are capable of doing. I usually use live trio or quartet jazz recordings and string quartets. I have heard both genres many times at live concerts. Again, there are a range of recording qualities. The first thing I always listen for is the size of the piano. We do not listen to pianos with our head inside them. Unfortunately, this is frequently were they place the microphones, so you get things like the bottom keys in the left channel and the top keys in the right channel with the bass and drums in the middle. You are usually listening to pianos from the side so all the notes should be in the same place, but give you the sense of a larger instrument by not being as sharply defined like a trumpet or sax. Dave Holland Quartet recordings are a great example of how it should be done.
"To me, surgically dissecting each track and obsessing about instrument placement isn’t enjoyment, it’s an OCD vampire sucking all the enjoyment out of music and probably life in general. I listen to music for pure enjoyment."
This person is not an audiophile. He enjoys music like the rest of us, but that is a different subject. Being an audiophile is all about building a high performance audio system. The question is what do we mean by high performance. Is it the accurate reproduction of timbre and space or just a system that sounds good to the owner.
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@tvrgeek
Very good. Several points. Euphonic can be clean as in low distortion levels. That says nothing about amplitude response which is generally where the euphonic comes from. As you pointed out most distortion comes in the form of loudspeakers. There are speakers which are uniquely better in this regard, true ribbons and ESLs. Rooms effect amplitude response, clarity and imaging.
As you suggest where the eyes go goes the hearing, if it looks good it must sound better. Just the way we are wired. The more expensive the better the sound, expectation bias. False beliefs, again expectation bias. We are ruled by our minds whether we like it or not. Being aware of this is the first step in countering it.
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@snilf
Super real will do I suppose. In the case of the system I mentioned, very pretty, but not realistic. Female voices and violins are not sibilant in person. Drummers do not set up their kit so the cymbals are 10 feet in front of the snare.
Obviously, this takes a proper live recording. I find it amusing that engineers of yor do a better job of getting this right.
This system is not beyond help at all. Just a steady roll off from 1 kHz at 1 dB/oct would result is less super-realism, but more accurate sound. Because this system is point source, images will alway be smaller, as if you are seated in the back of the venue. The system has very accurate bass down to about 50 Hz where it starts to lose power. He really needs two 15" subwoofers, another rabbit hole.
Sounding correct in terms of timbre is relatively easy. It is just a matter of correct amplitude response given a loudspeaker with a well designed crossover and phase response. Casting an image is the hard part. You can't know what you are missing until you experience it. It was about 10 years as an audiophile until I heard a system image correctly and another 10 before I could reliably replicate it.
In short, IMHO, it does not have to be perfectly accurate, it just has to be convincing.
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@snilf
Funny, I was just listening to UnderTow. Sober is my favorite Tool song.
Studio recordings are art, anything is permissible. Jimi Hendrix loved panning back and forth. In my experience, systems that can accurately portray a good live recording are more exciting to listen to when it comes to studio recordings. Take Roxy Music's Avalon or Carina Round's Tigermending, they are sonic paintings. Every little detail is suspended in space.
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@inna, @yesiam_a_pirate
I look at it differently. I have a goal. I know exactly what I want to hear and make modifications to achieve that result. I have a great sounding system, but it is not quite at the goal yet. You could say that I was not satisfied with the current system, but that is not how I look at it. I identify problems to solve and am happy to do so. That is what this hobby is really about. If the were no problems this would not be any fun!
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@rcm1203
To the contrary, being an audiophile is an expensive curse. The love of music and audiophilia are two entirely separate issues. You do not even have to love music to be an audiophile! I know an audiophile whose collection is entirely audiophile candy stuff. The music lover side of me will listen to 78's just to hear Enrico Caruso. You have not heard Lewis Armstrong until you have heard him in his younger days. I have a picture of him and I believe the Fast Five blowing their horns into one big horn! I know many musicians who could care less about audio.
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@mahgister
I did not say they are not related. The vast majority of audiophiles love music. The vast majority of music lovers are not audiophiles.
@asctim
That was tongue in cheek. The problem really is that I have to beg, borrow and steal to get the equipment I want, at least until recently.
What I really want is a certain sound and image quality. It is not imaginary even though most of the time I have to imagine it. It is an audiophile process, not a music lover process and I am not on any antipsychotics......yet. I also have a clear path to that goal. I know exactly where I am going and why.
@rcm1203
That last comment was way off base. As a 13 year old I cleared driveways of snow to get the money to buy my first real HiFi gear, Dynakits that I had to build. I usually bought used gear like my first real turnable a TD124 mk2. I have always made my own interconnects and build my own subwoofers. The best equipment is not cheap, it is also not hyper expensive. That Luxury HiFi stuff is the equivalent of a HiFi Rolex and IMHO a waste of money.
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@knownothing ,
You know more than you think. Flat sounds awful, way too brite and no bass.
@rsf507 ,
I am a bit of a socialist in that regard. The money that gets spent on luxury HiFi should be spent on subsidizing private grade schools. There are many amplifiers that are sonically as good or better than any Boulder Amp. An amplifier does not need a $10,000 CNC machined chassis to sound good. Same goes for speakers.
No, I am not going to tell people what to buy. It is still a free country, at least up until 3:39 today.
@mahgister
That was me with the tongue in cheek comment.
@stuartk
People could easily see me as "inherently dissatisfied." As you suggest this may be true for some, but I look at it as a challenge, making a system sound the way I want, then doing it reliably. The only time I look at it negatively is when something fucks up or blows up.
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@asctim
You hit on exactly the issues at play. First of all "feeling" is very much a part of the way a system sounds. You not only hear music, but you also feel it. Second of all is experience. You do not know what you are missing, what is possible, until you experience it. I was lucky in that I worked my way through graduate school working in the high end HiFi business. Of all the systems I have heard over the years only three could fool me into thinking a voice was in the room with me, that eyes close I could be at a live performance, three systems out of hundreds. Most people have never heard a system do this magic act. That is not to say they have never heard an impressive system, a system that impresses immediately is more likely to be hopelessly colored.
How does having a system that performs at this level "feel"? No different. I built my first system from Dynakits when I was 13 and an evolving process has taken place since then. I did not experience reference system #1 until I was 23. I have been doing touch up for the last 20 years or so, conquering minor errors or weaknesses. I have three more changes/additions to make and I will be 99.9% at target. Anything I do after that will be frill unless there is some major new technology
One more thing I would like to point out is Audiophiles can be hopelessly traditional.They tend to avoid new technologies that can make significant improvements in system performance like digital signal processing. Most excellent systems will never achieve greatness without it. I was at a friends house last weekend. I came with my laptop and microphone to measure his system. The character of the sound accepting the bass was excellent. The bass and imaging sucked and this was a $125,000 system. The subwoofers were not set up correctly (easy to fix), but more importantly the right speaker was down 10 dB at 300 Hz. This is due to the room not the speaker and this is what is screwing up the image. You can mess around with acoustic treatments until the cows come home and you are not going to get these speakers within 1 dB of each other without turning the room into an anechoic chamber. Digital EQ is the only way you are going to conquer this. Next time I go over I am going to bring a digital preamp to show him what happens when you make these adjustments. I find it interesting that very few "audiophiles" have ever measured their system. They want to do it by ear. Right.
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Wow, @mahgister who the heck said room control only addresses the frequency domain. That is BS of the highest order perpetrated by people who have no idea what they are talking about. Equalizers can only address the frequency domain. Only a digital system can affect time by delaying groups that are ahead. Phase can also be corrected. New systems with 64 bit floating point processors and systems can easily correct 30 dB, but to tell you the truth I have seen some pretty bad rooms and I have never seen one cause a 30 dB deficit and I have been measuring for quite a while.
There is no such thing as a tuned acoustic room. The best you can do is Boston Symphony Hall and I doubt you are going to stick one of those in your house.
My brother is a MIT Ph.D. acoustician and he never uses his ears for anything!
The problem is not the ear or ears. It is the brain connected to them.
@kennyc
I think you need to go to some live performances. You will quickly realize that a 300B amp is not going to get you very far even with very efficient loudspeakers. I'm not tube adverse, I run 220 watt mono tubes amps. If you like the mystique of glowing 300Bs CS Port has the amp for you, the 212 PAM2 mono tube amp, on sale for one day only at $194,000 a pair. You even get 40 watts a channel, enough to drive your grandmother's table radio.
The job of a phonograph cartridge is to translate or transduce what is on the record leaving it unscathed. It is to sound like nothing. It is to add or subtract nothing. It is not musical or detailed. It can not read you bedtime stories. It simply turns a mechanical vibration into an electrical signal. Only with loudspeakers do we settle for imperfection because there is no choice. Getting the electrical signal back into what the band sounded like during the recording process is a fool's errand. Given what some people are spending on HiFi they might as well hire a band. May I suggest Primus, I hear it is magister's favorite.
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The love of music and the love of audio are two entirely different but related subjects.
Using your ears to create a first class audio system is folly. You might use them in the end to make adjustments for taste like salting your food, but that is all. HiFi is all about technology and science. Understanding and applying both technology and science is the easy and sure path towards an accurate system otherwise it is a matter of luck. Your ears are more likely to steer you in the wrong direction. Saying you can is an excuse for not educating yourself and spending a little money on the right equipment. Let your ears enjoy the music.
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@onhwy61
I think the best reference for that would be Beethoven. You are right. Most of the time I am listening to music it is on the shop system which, although not terrible it is not near what is in the media room. My toe taps just the same.
Education is not a waste of time. That is a horrific thing to say, but worse is bad education, indoctrination. Too many minds are trapped in rubbish. Too many children are told they have to be X while their talents lie in Y. Zappa had it right. You do not need a school to get educated.
@alfa100
I suggest you get this record by Primus, Green Naugahyde and turn it up. You may want to get high first. This should fix the boredom, now tell me how much you have to spend.
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@stuartk
Exactly:-)
Every form of art has boundaries be they mathematical or otherwise, they are art nonetheless. It is even more challenging working within boundaries, but still find originality. How many people could dream up a Beethoven or Brahms symphony? Music and Audiophilia are two separate issues. One is art the other is technical with the exception of speaker enclosures and faceplates. Any artistic intent is purely visual.
The performance of an audio system is really not a matter of taste, being so could be seen as a cop out. I went to an Arctic Monkeys concert. I want my system to sound like that. I went to a John Scofield concert. I want my system to sound like that. I went to a Richard Thompson solo concert. I want my system to sound like that. I went to a Boston Symphony Orchestra concert. I want my system to sound like that. People will say this is impossible. Bullocks, another cop out. With enough clean power and the right speakers it is now possible to make a system sound like anything.
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@asctim
It is because of dipole effect. They radiate in a 3D figure 8 pattern minimizing sound to the sides, up or down. Thus, there is less room interaction. I might suggest deadening the wall directly behind the speakers. It will improve your imaging. If I read you correctly you like your system because it sounds more "real" to you and that is what it is all about.
The attraction to dipoles is very significant in residential settings dealing with smaller spaces. Once people try a dipole system (with the exception of subwoofers) they are generally loth to go back.
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@asctim
I made a set of two way open baffle speakers for a friend with subwoofers below. I hung the speakers from the ceiling with decorative chains. The baffles were made of a sandwich of Corian and MDF. They were very heavy for their size. Worked out very well. Just a thought.
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@mirolab
I also play the drums, just not very well. You are right. It is impossible for most systems to produce the sound and volume of a crash cymbal, at a distance of one meter. Some horn systems can do it. However, at a concert you are not one meter away from the cymbals. It is very possible for a system to reproduce the volume of a cymbal at 10 meters. As a matter of fact, it is not even the treble that is the most difficult to get right, it is the bass. If you want to hear cymbals that make one squint, listen to any early ECM record. In the era we did not use any tone controls or EQ some of these records were not listenable. Violins and female voices can do the same thing, it is called sibilance. It is so common in systems that many people think it is normal! Many PA systems are also sibilant. Humans do not play instruments that hurt to listen to. They would toss them in the bin. Female voices are attractive for a reason. Sibilance is not normal and if you hear it in a system there is a problem. My definition of system includes the room. With EQ you can get rid of it buy programming in a Gundry Dip. When I evaluate systems I always play a string quartet that I know really well. If there is a problem it will find it.
It is not that a system should be perfectly accurate, this is impossible. But, a system, given the right recording, should, and can make you feel, with eyes closed, that you are listening to a real event. I have heard exactly three systems that could do just that, bass included. I have also heard a few that could do it with certain genres of music, acoustic stuff. Some of us prefer systems that are so colored any semblance of reality is nonexistent. It is not my cup of tea, but everyone is entitled to their own flavor.
When I play Waiting for Columbus for audiophile friends they are almost universally taken aback by the power of Richie Hayward's drums. The last one commented," gee, I am not used to this!
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@brev
No brev, the craftsmanship of Fleetwood Mac is not lost at all (at least until Peter Green left). It is the craftsmanship of the recording engineers that is lost and the vast majority of people do not care about that at all, only people like me and donavabdear care about it.
@donavabdear
Don't you think that at some level what the engineers do is affected by the system they are listening to? If their systems are not accurate how can the work be accurate?
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@snilf
I think it would be more correct to say everything factual extends from theory. Once you have a fact it is no longer a theory.
@mahgister
That's exactly what I have, a nanobrain.
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@mahgister ,
No, I speak the most horrible english ever, but far better than I write.
I am not a philosopher, I am a pragmatist. As others have mentioned, there is no such thing as accurate in regards to reproducing the actual event. With most studio recordings there is no actual event, there are multiple small events pieced together in the mind of the mastering engineer.
It is not so much that an audio system is accurate, it is with the proper recording that a system can convince you you are at the actual event. This in itself is a moving target because it depends on how the individual hears things. There is no way to absolve ourselves from the fact that this is a personal experience.
What I have noticed, in spite of what I said above, is that everytime I am in the presence of a remarkable system everyone else seems to come to the same conclusion. There is a shared concept of accurate reproduction even if it is hard to quantify. It is one of those, "you'll know when you get there," events.
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