resolution and imaging

Learsfool, As the poster of one of the 'odd comments', lest I misunderstand, are you saying that you can distinguish the tonal qualities of each violin, and perhaps even be able to identify their maker by their particular tone, when the violins are playing en masse and you are sitting in the back of the hall? If so, you have a hearing ability that I don't possess. Just disregard the remainer of this post.

Or are you using the term in the context of being able to identify a particular type of instrument when it is playing with others, for example when all of the string instruments are playing the same music at the same volume (if this were even possible?) i.e. being able to distinguish between a violin, a viola, and a cello, playing the same note?

When using the term timbre I was using it in the context of how the violins (for example) sounded in comparison to each other, i.e. blended vs individually identifiable, not how they sounded when compared to winds, brass, percussion, nor how the various similar types sounded when compared to each other and what distinguishes their individual tones from each other. Apart from picking out instruments out of tune or players hitting sour notes I have doubts that fine distinguishing observations can be made from this distance between like (not just in the same family) instruments.

I would hope that most experienced folks can tell the difference between various instruments, even when some very similar ones play in the same register, but from the back row in the typical orchestral hall, at least the ones I have visited, I think even this would be very difficult for many folks unless there was a difference in pitch or volume to assist in the discrimination. Now if you can localize the source, its a walk in the park, but that has nothing much to do with timbre I think.

Perhaps we just use the word differently? When I have seen it used in this forum, for the most part, I have assumed the poster was simply referring to a speakers ability to replicate the sound of an instrument reasonably accurately, but only in certain aspects, which has as much to do with the speakers (and other stuff in the chain) level of resolution as anything else.

I think it must be so, since neither you, I think, nor I would ever listen to a speaker reproducing an instrument (let alone an entire orchestra) and think that we might be hearing the real thing and 'thus be able to identify with any sense of certainty subtle differences in 'timbre' between it and others of its kind.

Care to buy a 'Strad' based, not on its reputation nor after hearing it live, but only over a stereo system and relying on only what your hear then (not its reputation/cost/bling factors)? Would you be confident that its tone would be the tone that you would want as opposed to the tone of many other fine, but different, violins?

So when I listen to music over a stereo system I don't think in terms of its ability to resolve subtle timbre issues so much as to allow an open window to what the recording engineers put down. And only the lord knows what that might have been!

Now for my first cup of coffee...........

Its hard to take issue with your observations as resolution/imaging is a priority for me, especially when the resolution is so fine that you get excellent front to back spaciality. BUT...........

I go to live unamplified performances regularly, and I try when at all possible to sit in the center main floor seats in rows D thru H. Apart from fantastic dynamics which I do hear, what I don't hear is high frequency overload from the strings, great seperation of individual instruments, and the general spaciality effects of a recording. Now I'm sure that if I was on the podium I would hear it differently.

So when folks say they don't need all of the 'imaging' that we prize I can easily understand why. Interestly I lived without it (the appreciation of these reproduction qualities) for years and still enjoyed music thoroughly. Perfhaps even more so then than now.

Lets face it. Excellent imaging is a product of excellent components AND set up, but it is far more the result of fantasy that the stereo recording/reproduction process creates than anything else. And 'imaging' is, IMHO, what drives so much of the interest in Audio as a hobby. And this is exactly what music enthusiasts do not NEED, all of this audio refinement, to get a full measure of what is recorded. Ignorance can be blissful! :-)

Wavetrader, Consider that what you hear depends on your proximity to the instrument(s) making the sound. What a mic picks up is also mostly (but not identically to your ears) dependent on proximity. If you were on the podium you would much more easily hear width, depth, height and 'highlighted soloists' would no longer sound highlighted, for pianist and violinists at least are more often than not very near the podium. This also applies to the presence of 'imaging' on chamber music in a chamber vs a symphony hall.

A lot of recordings are, IMHO, recorded and mixed, with the 'podium effect'. The problem, if that is what it is, is that most of us never get to stand on the podium so it is a sound with which we are not familar, and is the reason that so many folks feel a well developed sense of imaging is artificial and unnecessary.

I think there is also a downside to great imaging for just this reason. When you are listening to the 'podium effect', as a result of the recording methodology and your equipment/set up, the performance (in your subconscious) often gets second billing to the sound of specificity.

Recall those many requests for recordings in forums from folks who want the recordings with the best sound (SACD's or vinyl for example) without any emphasis on the importance on performance. Often I get a guilty conscience when I find myself pulling a Reference Recording off the shelf primarily because they are great recordings, not because they are the best performances I have, and only occasionally do they contain both excellent performances and sonics (try Copland's 3rd Symphony et al - WOW!).

Once you have fixed your attention on the 'podium effect' it becomes hard to ignore its presence, or for that matter its absence, all to the detriment of the music/performance.

If I could go back in time, I think I could have been very happy with the Omni speaker experience if I had kept an open mind. Now it is too late for that, for me.

Wavetrader, I love your analogy. It works! But, in the long run is it valuable to look at the painting up close, when/if it detracts from the picture the artist entended?
The old 'failing to see the forrest for the trees' works as aptly, I think. No real answer to this question. Its all so personal.

Re the accuracy of timbre both in general and as emphasized by Mr T..... On a recording the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of timbre would be effected more by mic placement than clarity of detail I think, or attributibe to one or several instruments together which are out of tune and because there are closely mic'd and become very vivid in the mix become noticible in the overall performance.

FWIW, I remain unconvinced that Mr T can hear instrument timbre in the back of the hall. In that location the sound is so infused with hall sounds such specificity is impossible. Now if the Concertmaster is half tone deaf and can't tune the orchestra, that is another matter.

Horses for courses. Some like a fast track, others like (or at least perform better than others in) mud! :-)

Sns, I agree totally with your last post. This has been my personal experience as well. I won't bore with details, but I have so many CD's of great performances (thats why I bought them) that are quite listenable now than I did just a few years ago and this is all related to an honest re-assessment of my real goals and expectaions. I keep digging out these old remastered analog and early digital recordings. Like having a gold mine of new unexpected treasures in the closet. :-) I have not found any that sound worse, or even as bad, as before and the ultimate resolution qualities of my system have made a major leap since I put them away.

Learsfool, Thanks for the clarification regarding what I percieved as a superhuman hearing ability mostly achieved after the signal hit the grey matter. :-)

FWIW, my use of the word timbre in that context was not from ignorance of common usage so much as I can't imagine that anyone at an audiophile level would accept speakers in the first place that couldn't resolve differences between mic'd violins and cellos (for example) playing in the same register. Its just not that subtle, I think.

I think this has been said somewhere (probably in this thread) but all of the discussion about a live acoustic and imaging is IMHO nothing more than the ability of the forces to drive or overdrive a room, not much different that what a stereo system does in your home.

As evidence, listen to Mahler in a small auditorum - listen to some Bosendorfers in a small chamber. Either could put you off your lunch. Now move them to appropriate space and you get to hear a lot more inner detail. Remove the room factor entirely, i.e. outside, and Mr T would (at least I would argue he could) hear all of that imaging that he does not hear in his home or in a symphony hall in his favorite seat even if the distance to the orchestra was identical. But I suspect most would find the sound a bit sterile, being acoustomed to the reverberations added by the room. I do.

So, in the final analysis I tend to agree with Mapman's last sentence, and like Goldylocks I have chosen to set up a system which is not overly analytical, yet has enuf overall resolution so that I can get very good imaging including front to back 'depth of image'. Not because I think that this is 'real' so much as it is just the sound I like most.

FWIW.