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System that sounds so real it is easy to mistaken it is not live

My current stereo system consists of Oracle turntable with SME IV tonearm, Dynavector XV cartridge feeding Manley Steelhead and two Snappers monoblocks  running 15" Tannoy Super Gold Monitors. Half of vinyl records are 45 RMP and were purchased new from Blue Note, AP, MoFI, IMPEX and some others. While some records play better than others none of them make my system sound as good as a live band I happened to see yesterday right on a street. The musicians played at the front of outdoor restaurant. There was a bass guitar, a drummer, a keyboard and a singer. The electric bass guitar was connected to some portable floor speaker and drums were not amplified. The sound of this live music, the sharpness and punch of it, the sound of real drums, the cymbals, the deepness, thunder-like sound of bass guitar coming from probably $500 dollars speaker was simply mind blowing. There is a lot of audiophile gear out there. Some sound better than others. Have you ever listened to a stereo system that produced a sound that would make you believe it was a real live music or live band performance at front of you?

 

esputnix

Showing 2 responses by hilde45

hilde45's avatar
hilde45
4,842 posts
 

I was at a live concert recently -- no amplification -- that made me wish I was listening to it on a stereo. Church acoustics and seat position can be very very bad. Live music is not always better.

hilde45's avatar
hilde45
4,842 posts
 

NO! If anyone thinks recorded sound is superior to live sound(not amplified live sound) then that’s an oxymoron. They are saying they don’t like live sound(which is of course the standard simply by its very nature), that they prefer colorations which is their valid choice but it’s not real. I can hear Gordon Holt turning in his grave.

As I said in my post, I heard a concert recently that was live but was inferior to what I can hear on my stereo.

What is "real"? What a slippery hook on which to hang an aesthetic discussion of what makes something sound significant.

Wouldn’t we agree that a stereo that produces an intimate, detailed, textured sound of an oboe sounds more like an oboe -- more "real" if you wish -- than how one sounds at distance, off axis, in a church with less than great acoustics? If the latter one has some "live" quality that you prize, would you prefer a stereo that produces *that* than the one which is more significant sounding but lacks that "live" quality? 

In this example, the recording of the oboe has more presence, tonality, emotion, detail, and punch than the one heard live. So why wouldn’t the presence of all those qualities -- plus the emotion -- add up to greater "reality" where "reality" is best understood as "significance"? In my view, it does.

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