This is a long expose’. My apologies in advance. Perhaps you will find it enjoyable or thought provoking. Perhaps you will find me in need of therapy.
I am lucky to live in the NYC suburbs that provide multifarious venues for all genres of music, dance, and theater within the inner city and beyond. There are the large venues (Carnegie Hall, Koch Theater, Metropolitan) but many smaller venues where ensembles perform. This weekend I attended a Fever Candlelight Concert of seasonal music at the St. Mark’s Episodical Church in Mount Kisco NY performed by the Highline String Quartet sitting about 25 feet from the performers in a warm acoustic environment. Much enjoyable. Vivaldi L’inverno evoked a tear. However, every time I come home from a live performance, I reflect on the state of the art of musical recording and playback, with feelings that as far as technology has advanced in the past 10 years, we are far off from the real thing. I have spent much time with $1mm systems at dealers and have curated a system within my means that focuses on timbre, dynamics, and image density, at least to my ears. But after listening to the real thing, I have the following observations:
1. Organic nature of reproduced music cannot approach the sweetness, liquidity, and palpability of the real thing. The real thing is detailed but never with harsh artifacts that I still hear even in $1mm systems. Massed orchestral strings is the best example of where the state of the art is getting better, but still far off from the sweetness and liquidity of the real thing.
2. Imaging and staging of reproduced music cannot approach the real thing. I find systems homogenizes the sound field and some separate the sound field images in excess compared to the real thing. When in a live venue, there images are distinct but the secondary harmonics from the instruments and the reflected sounds from the venue mix and diffuse the images in a manner that recorded and reproduced music cannot capture.
3. The dynamics of recorded and reproduced music have a different quality than the real thing. Dynamics is where the state of the art has much improved. Macro and microdynamics of systems I like are well reproduced. The difference I hear is that the leading edge of the real thing is powerfully evident but never harsh. It’s forceful and relaxed at the same time.
4. Many systems today produce vivid detail but in a manner different than the real thing. The way the bow, strings, and sounding board/body of the instrument develops and ripples out into the venue in an integrated manner is getting closer, but not yet there. This, combined with my comments on imaging/staging produce detailed sound that progresses from a point source outward in three dimensions. As an analogy, the detailed sound wave images progress into the venue like the visual image of a fireworks exploding in the sky. Recorded music playback is getting closer, but it’s not the real thing.
I believe the recording technology is most at fault. This belief stems from the fact that some recording labels consistently come closer to the real thing. For example, certain offerings from Reference Recordings, 2L, Linn, Blue Note, and Stockfish produce timbre, staging/imaging, and dynamics closer to the real thing. I do not understand recording engineering to understand why.
What are your observations on the state of the art compared to the real thing? For those technical competent, any explanation why we are not closer?
