Thoughts on the most difficult instruments for speakers to reproduce?


I’ve heard a number of speakers over the years, and the sounds of some instruments never seem as realistic as others. I would love to get some opinions on this, as I’ve been wondering about this for years.

My my vote on the toughest:
- Trumpet with mute (good example is Miles Davis)
- Alto sax
- violin (higher registers)

Thx!




glow_worm

Showing 1 response by erik_squires

I can think of a few things.

1 - Microphone placement - Audience, stage or in the case? This all affects what is in the recording to begin with. 

2 - Bass - This is why so many feel subwoofers can add so much to music. 

3 - Radiating patterns. Piano's radiate spherically, with some direction given by the main lid. Some sounds are mechanical and coming right off the floor. 

4 - Room acoustics. I heard the Magico S1MkII in the Magico showroom - they did great except in the bottom registers. A little too chesty due to the speaker tuning. However the rest of the piano was quite convincing. I can't help but think how much of that was thanks to having speakers in such a large well treated space in combination with speakers with unusually wide dispersion. 

It might be really interesting to do a 4 channel recording, but with the microphones in 4 directions around the piano and using speakers back-to-back to attempt to reproduce the sound. Would this make us feel closer to listening to a live speaker? :) Wish I was in college, it would make a good research paper. 

Best,

E