The focus and air lie

Ndeslions, many things have happened: indeed people have lost contact with the real thing - - unamplified music is not popular. I want the illusion of real musicians playing real instruments in my living room. Getting there is not easy, since so much live music is amplified, and so much recorded music is the processed cheese of amplified instruments recorded and then mixed.

True high fidelity is the presentation of music from real, actual stereo recordings. The playback equipment and speakers sonically disappear.

A while ago, audio writer Jeff Day (who wrote for 6moons, now for PFO) summed up his perspective:

"Hifi equipment that possesses exceptional musicality is equipment that emphasizes the musical aspects of a recorded performance over the non-musical artifacts of the recording process. For example, the timbral signature of a band, the melodic flow of music over time in a song, and delivering the full emotional impact of music are considered to be more important than the exaggeration of the non-musical artifacts of the recording process such as soundstaging, transparency, imaging and extreme detail recovery that has found favor in equipment voiced for audiophiles."

I think Jeff needs to look more closely at the recording process to find the starting point of where things go wrong, but there so much I do agree with.

I believe music lovers can get the very best in audio reproduction, but too many factors are beyond their control.

I agree that many audiophiles have completely lost touch with what live music sounds like, in any type of venue, and that it is easier for salesmen to sell the details.

However, Nedslions is I think confusing some of his terms. Granted that audiophiles define terms differently, here are a couple of examples.

When "air" is spoken of, this is usually taken to mean the sense of space that exists in a concert hall or club that surrounds the instruments and audience. This sense of fullness you speak of, Nedslions, and the sense of the sound filling a real space, is what most are talking about when they refer to air, and a system you describe that is "too focused" would be lacking in air. So "air" certainly exists in any live performance venue (though not in most recording studios nowadays, which deliberately eliminate as much air as they can, and are usually "too focused"). Think of air as a component of the soundstage. It is also closely related to what many call "imaging," which is the ability to determine exactly where each individual instrument is located within that space.

A big part of the reason that audiophiles have lost the things you speak of is that most everything is digitally recorded in a dead studio space - this "detailed" sound is much easier to recreate than say a live symphony orchestra in a great concert hall. And even orchestras are not recorded nearly as well nowadays in their halls as they were when everything was still done in analog with tubes, as larryken implies. The truly ironic thing is that this so-called "detailed" sound is actually much less detailed, since so much ambient sound, which is so important to the recreation of live music, is taken away.

Learsfool : when i talk about "air" i mean the space between instruments sensation.
I call "atmosphere" what you call "air"... just a problem of words.

Learsfool, your comments on the "real space" are exactly right. The contribution of the environment in which the recording was made can't be underestimated. IMHO, after the placement of microphones, it's the second critical factor.

one problem is the designers who may be motivated by fear of poor reviews. thus products are designed to extract every bit of data on the recording.

many of the products of 20 + years ago create a more timbrally realistic presentation than those in current production.

as has been said recordings are also part of the problem.