2. music
  3. 182335-171283

Solving the "complex music problem"?

I have noticed that, regardless of the system, simple music (i.e. music with only a few sounds at the same time, such as a solo instrument) sounds way better than what I'll call here "complex music", meaning music like symphony that has a lot of instruments all playing different sounds at the same time. I'm assuming that this is an inherent problem for audio equipment. In a live symphony, you might have, say, 15 different unique instruments (i.e. counting all the violins as 1 unique instrument), each of which is vibrating in a different way; but in a speaker, each driver might be trying to reproduce 10 of those sounds at the same time. So each driver is a single physical object trying to vibrate in 10 different ways at the same time. The result is that the music sounds muddy, all the different parts blend together and you lose a lot of the detail.

I have a number of questions about this that I'm hoping all you experts can help me with.

1. Is there an established name or term for this issue? 

2. Do you think my diagnosis of the problem above is correct? Or is something else going on?

3. Although this is always a problem, it's a much bigger problem on some systems than others. Are there some types of components, or some brands, that are particularly good (or bad) when it comes to this issue?

4. To what extent is this issue related to the components you have as compared to speaker placement and room acoustics?

5. To me, this is a huge issue. But I don't see it discussed all that often. Why do you think that is? Or, perhaps, it is being discussed all the time, but people are using a term I don't recognize? (hence question 1).  

 

Full disclosure, I asked a related question under the heading "need amp recommendations for more separation of instruments" and got a lot of super helpful responses. I'm very grateful to everyone who took the time to respond there. That discussion was focused on a solution to my particular problem. Here I'm hoping to have a more general discussion of the issue. I know it's bad form to post the same question twice, but in my mind, this is a significantly different question. Thanks.

ahuvia

Showing 2 responses by o_holter

o_holter
980 posts
 

I agree with many points in this thread - how to improve the playback system, and not least, the integration with the room. Yet I think many problems of ’complex music’ are inherent in the recording. You can reduce them in the playback but they don’t go away.

I would rather think of the problem like this:

recording problems x format limits x playback limits

Meaning that whatever problem is there in the recording, will be accenuated with a poor format and playback system (even if ’masked’ by low resolution etc).

We could use + rather than x, in this formula. But in my experience, the problems tend to interact. So if the recording is medium but the format and playback poor, they will appear larger. The sound will be even worse.

Maybe we should put x2 for the recording factor. It means a lot. With high dynamic and complex music, recording can become very difficult. Witness, from way back when, Procol Harum: In Concert With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, a pioneer effort from 1972. And we still hear recording problems, e g when The National plus guests try to redo the grand Grateful Dead song Terrapin Station, sounding noticeably worse than most of the more simple tracks on this Day of the dead 10xLP box, 2016.

Why? Recording a lot of instruments and voices together, each sounding their best, is hard to do. Integrating them into coherent sound is difficult. A notable "problem area", just mentioned, is integrating a band and a symphony orchestra, pioneered by prog rock bands like Procol Harum, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd. The best recordings succeeded, like Dark Side of the Moon, but then again, this was due to heavy production - we dont hear a lot of individual players.

My best-sounding recent LPs are less complex music. Like Bhatt and Cooder: A meeting by the river. Two string instruments. Or piano and voice, like D Krall or P Barber. My less-complex music sounds great, the problem is the complex music.

For a problem case, compare the Danish group Mew. I like them a lot, and have heard them live, plus on cd, and on lp. They switch from soft (simple) to strong (complex) passages, and the sound is clearly better on the soft parts. We heard the same thing from Mew live, some years ago. The sound on the strong parts was too loud. (cf Mew: No more stories... LP 2009)

o_holter
980 posts
 

ahuvia - we converge - nice with a thread that actually brings agreement. The recording (and production) sure means a lot.

A quite simple but important factor is playback volume. I can remember from way back when, turning down the volume on hard-sounding complex passages and then up again on more quiet passages, with a variety of playback systems and rooms from the 70s onwards. Not really a solution, but a quick-fix that made the album more listenable.

I also agree regarding the big role of the amp. Also connected to volume. Most amps have a 'volume window' where they sound best, above 'dull' and below 'hard'.  When the speakers match this window (some would even say; the optimal volume setting), there are sonic rewards.

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