What is it I'm failing to grasp?
I come across statements here and elsewhere by guys who say 1) their systems come very close to duplicating the experience of hearing live music and 2) that they can listen for hours and hours due to the "effortless" presentation.
I don't understand how these two claims add up. In tandem, they are profoundly inconsistent with my experiences of listening to live music.
If I think about concerts I consider the best I've witnessed (Oregon, Solas, Richard Thompson, SRV, Dave Holland Quintet, '77 G. Dead, David Murray, Paul Winter Consort), I would not have wanted any of those performances to have extended much beyond their actual duration.
It's like eating-- no matter how wonderfully prepared the food, I can only eat so much-- a point of satiation is reached and I find this to be true (for me) when it comes to music listening as well. Ditto for sex, looking at visual art, reading poetry or playing guitar. All of these activities require energy and while they may feel "effortless" in the moment, I eventually reach a point where I must withdraw from aesthetic simulation.
Furthermore, the live music I've heard is not always "smoothly" undemanding. I love Winifred Horan's classically influenced Celtic fiddling but the tone she gets is not uniformly sweet; the melodies do not always resemble lullabies. The violin can sound quite strident at times. Oregon can be very melodious but also,(at least in their younger days) quite chaotic and atonal. These are examples on the mellower side of my listening spectrum and I can't listen to them for more than a couple hours, either live or at home.
Bottom line: I don't find listening to live music "effortless" so I don't understand how a system that renders this activity "effortless" can also be said to be accurate.
What is it that I'm failing to grasp, here?
Yeah-- I accept the limitations imposed by not having a dedicated room. I'm not chasing "the absolute sound" nor am I unhappy withy my system. But I know there's a whole lot I don't know about audio, so when I see something repeated as a truism that seems to run counter to my listening experiences, I feel compelled to try to deepen my understanding. This was my motivation in starting this thread. |
Though I am not a huge Harrison fan I like all things Beatles and from "the Inner Light" the farther one travels the less one knows is appropriate here. I put in dedicated lines to all of my equipment only to find through reading posts that is not even close to enough (except to me) Like you I am actually very satisfied with my equipment. My room is more a mess than a listening room most of the time....very un-dedicated. Your thread is awesome and so much discussion is enlightening. I have enjoyed it more than any other to date. I am working towards the acoustic improvements of the room these days. I have no doubt that is where it will end for me. I have my dream VTLs and speakers. A small cable improvement may happen here or there (and I plan to add a Denafrips Aries II DAC soon) but the room is now #1 on the list. I hope you can listen to the 2 cuts I listed only because I think it will give a feel of the live performance in your room exclusively for you. That is what I felt and emphasizes I have been on the right track for my listening experience. He sits between my speakers and plays and sings to me. Thanks my brother. R |
Yes-- I've been very gratified by the content of this thread. RE: ATMP, I read a ton of reviews of the recent remaster and decided it was not for me. Dhani asserted his primary goal with the remaster was to attract younger listeners and the reviewers' characterizations of the SQ certainly seemed to bear this out. It's not likely I'll buy it but I appreciate the recommendation. I'm glad you're enjoying your system. At some point, we'll move and then I'll have a dedicated room. |
I’ll clarify. I would not have gone out and bought the remaster version either. I never read a review. I had the studio LP for years and maybe played it once. Not my cup of tea as they would say. It was a gift from a friend. I put it on to see how it sounded. The tracks are extra tracks added. They are not the studio version of the originally recorded tracks. They are intimate live recordings of the 2 songs where George sits nearly alone and throws his heart and soul into it....acoustically. They are the only 2 tracks I listen to. So, if you ever get the chance to just listen to them it is worth the listen..but probably not the purchase price for sure. Again, thanks for this thread...it has been a pleasure following. R |
@stuartk , They all are hearing the true sound. A guitar amplifier is part of the instrument. Musicians pick amplifiers and speakers to get the sound they want. If you are listening to the individual instruments through their own amplification you have the true sound. If the amplifiers are microphoned and you are listening them through a PA system then it is not the true sound. This is the sort of thing you get in stadium concerts. The "true" sound can differ do to location but it remains the true sound. The same thing happens with vision. We can both look at the same tree but we see it from different angles. We see it slightly differently but it is still the real tree just a different perspective. I think we all know what it feels like to be at a live performance. My goal has always been to produce that feeling in a comfortable and safe way. |
@stuartk, to me it is all about the feeling and the image. Those are the characteristics of live music that are hardest to reproduce. The feeling is the sound, produced correctly. |
You realize that this "feeling" experience prove nothing for sure because there is and there will be always a difference between a real event and his playback? The "sound produced correctly" ? The sound is an ACOUSTIC phenomenon perceived in a specific room , it is a TRANSLATION not a REPRODUCTION... And imaging is not soundstage, it is not timbre perception , it is not dynamic, it is not listener envelopment ETC...There exist many others acoustical factors... Why is imaging your main criteria? Timbre experience with his time envelope and spectral envelope is the MAIN criteria in acoustic tuning of a room, not imaging ...It is very easy to have some imaging, very more difficult to have natural timbre experience.... You can have SOME imaging perspective experience with an unnatural timbre, but you cannot have natural good timbre experience with bad imaging , Guess why ? If you know something about acoustic ? A clue: spectral envelope and time envelope of the Timbre phenomenon.... 😁😊
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@stuartk , No. I mean feeling not emotion. You feel music. There is a video of a man who is 100% deaf but he loves playing music because HE CAN FEEL IT! The best systems can produce the feeling of a live event. This requires the ability to play cleanly at louder volumes, 85 - 95 dB and produce accurate bass flat down to 18 Hz, lower if you can get there. Imaging is a very interesting topic. In reality, imaging with a stereo system is in many ways surrealistic. At it's best imaging certainly adds to the experience. It is neat to be able to imagine walking around the individual instruments as if they existed in space. Very few systems are capable of doing this. In my experience precisely 3. The first one change my entire concept of HiFi performance. It was based on Pyramid Metronome loudspeakers and Threshold electronics. The owner, a high school teacher put on one of the Art Blakey albums and all the instruments hung in space. The second was a Peter McGrath system at Sound Components based on Stacked Quads and Mark Levinson electronics. Same effect. You can probably guess what the third is. The timbre, the feeling and the image are the three aspects of Hi Fi performance that have to be managed to produce a life like performance. Of the three the image is most definitely the hardest to get right. |
It is not so much the system that can do it most of the times, save for very bad designed audio system who will fail to do it, it is ACOUSTIC treatment and especially acoustic control that can create imaging to an optimal level not the gear by itself save at a lower extent level... Even my system could produce " some " imaging in my uncontrolled room few years ago...... Imaging is an acoustic phenomemon resulting from the coupling of the system and the room and their pressure zones distributions interactions...Location of speakers and sound level coordination all along the frequencies range is necessary...Timing of the reflected and direct frontwaves is also a main factor especially in the front/back axis...... if my 500 bucks system can do it in the right acoustic environment then ANY relatively good system can do it...You claim that only three can do it among all the others you listen to ONLY exemplify the general lack of acoustic knowledge... For sure some high end design system are more able than others this is not the question , but any good system can give a tremendous imaging in the right acoustically treated and controlled room... Then your opinion resulted from lack in acoustic experience and experiments...An electronic equalizer is not an acoustical tuning room device, it is a very limited tool...And you will never get timbre experience right with this tool only...
You are wrong here also for the simple reason that timbre is an acoustic subjectively PERCEIVED phenomema, a very complex one integrating in its BODY a time envelope and spectral envelope reflecting ALSO all the acoustic conditions of the room where the timbre experience is recorded or listened to from an acoustical perspective and from choices and location and not only from the vibrating bodies quality of the violin ... Simple.... Then imaging is very easy to create compared to timbre NATURALNESS ... The acoustic information related to many instruments interaction in space is more easy to retrieve than the complex resonating body of ONLY one and of each one of these instruments in a specific room...It is also a less complex information than the information related to the timbre of the instrument... The acoustic content of a voice is more complex than his location information in space...is it not evident? A bad timbre of piano is a timbre but the difficulty is to have it right...The same for imaging but it is impossible to have timbre naturalness without imaging conditions with it, it is very possible to create imaging by using time and reflective timing in a room and not succeeding to create a NATURAL timbre for the piano... Why? Read about timbre envelope perception...A cue? a violin will sound with different timbre experience in a bad room ...Timbre experience incorporated not only the vibration of the sound source qualities but also we perveive this resonating body of the violin in a particular RESONATING room... The imaging is the easiest to get right to a RELATIVE extent to begin with...Timbre is the last to get right and the more important acoustical cue and ruler to tune a room...
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OK. . . You are speaking of a physiological sensations. This not something I tend to focus upon, whether in the audience at a live event or in a home listening environment. Perhaps because I've played guitar for many decades, my focus is on the music -- the intervals, pitches, tempos, and the ebb and flow of tension and resolution (and hence, emotional responses) these shifting aspects generate. If I am focusing on sound, then I've lost track of the music.
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@stuartk , I think you underestimate yourself. Does any system you have heard approximate the experience you get at a good live concert? Sound? you can get a good approximation of the sound out of a table radio, good enough to be able to identify the song and sing along. But, at a good live concert with just the naked instruments or with an excellent sound system you get much more, enough to raise frisson. Obviously, there is something missing is most home systems. You hear the music fine but you do not feel it. You may not be conscious of this but it is a missing piece of the puzzle. I know a few people who will attest to the fact that even if your imaging is second rate if the feeling is there you are 95% of the way home. As I said before, imaging in the best home system is surrealistic. The images are even more detailed than what you get at the best live concerts even perhaps the acoustic ones. |
