Which is more accurate: digital or vinyl?

RE***Ever heard the term,"the devil is in the details"?***

RE***Which brings up another old saying, "you don't know what you are missing".***

In a friendly manner, all i can say is..."you are preaching to the choir" and perhaps you have not understood the points I/WE are trying to make.

Nobody here is strictly preaching AGAINST a system that is superbly/highly resolving.

You seem to believe that it is possible to have state of the art resolution and AT THE SAME TIME have all recordings in one's collection sound wonderfully musical. Perhaps that has been your experience. It has not been mine.(i do not consider my system "state of the art") Perhaps, we are different kinds of listeners and have different preferences and therefore we are defending two different things.

On norah jones's debut lp and a few other lps, I like you have done everything i know how to "resolve the devils in the details" and guess what? i think i have succeeded at that masterfully. Fine and ok. But what about my other lp's? Why doesn't the amazing sound i've acheived with those recordings translate over to the rest of my collection?

You might answer...well, those lps weren't up to snuff and that's fine with you because you are ok with listening with warts and all. And i can partly understand and accept that too. I think i know what you mean here.

But...

I just feel and know from experience that it would be possible to make those other lps to sound better than they do then when the system is dialed in for those few select recordings already mentioned(norah jones, etc). How? Through subtle or major system changes.

This will make the DETAILS in THOSE lps sound more right, more musical but NOT necessarily at the expense of resolution but rather in regard to HOW those details are RENDERED.

Now, if i make those other lps sound as good as is possible through long hours of listening and tweaking and i can finally say , yes, they sound great , they sound musical, the details are there but then i go a put back on the norah jones lp it now is no longer sounding as good as it did before!

I care just as much as you about the rendering of fine details in a recording but have found as soon as you have achieved that on certain lps you lose some of it on others and vice versa.

My European mother and father you to say " you can't have your butt on two chairs at the same time" In other words, you have to choose one or the other. (smiling)

There is the possibility that without knowing it your system is actually one of the systems that pulls back from extreme resolution and is making a majority of albums sound great to you. Or maybe you really haven't achieved perfect timbres, which by the way is a extremely narrow window to operate and move in and therefore your system is more broad and forgiving. I'm not saying it is...i'm saying...maybe.

But if you were to try and push the envelope, REALLY push it! you would find the same problem?

At the same time it is also possible that MY system has some kind of character or attribute that makes some lps sound stellar but others a bit off. Perhaps i can make the majority of the different types of recordings all sound as good as a select number of lps by some kind of change. I don't know what that change would be and i confess i am skeptical about achieving the goal of being able to render timbres (high resolution) perfectly across most lps, most of the time.

I guess some would argue that in light of all this (this huge obstacle/challenge) perhaps it is better to sacrifice A LITTLE BIT of resolution to make more lps, more satisfying. NO, we are not saying go to zero resolution or wear one pant legged pants but perhaps it makes sense to take a few degrees off in the resolution department to make more lps enjoyable, the way the artist and producers would have wanted.

If norah jones sounds great and the playbacks resolution is wonderfull who can tell me i need to change something? If i've acheived the goals you subscribe to why is there still a problem? How do i proceed to make my other lps sound like this one without changing anything in the system, since if i do, norah jones won't have great resolution anymore if i do?

The sun is a good thing and helps us to see but staring into the sun for too long could ultimately leave us blind. Between seeing and going blind there are many graduations in between and we argue it is important to strike a kind of optimal balance and that sometimes it is possible to go too far one way so that what was once perceived as progress, actually is not?

.

Ever heard the term,"the devil is in the details"?

Or, "you ain't heard nothing yet"?

All music is sound,not all sound is music.

The novice musician can make sounds on his instrument of choice,it takes time and practise to make music.

It also takes time and patience and the practise of trial and error to bring out the hidden details in a piece of recorded music.

When someone purchases a pair of pants, would they be content if what they brought home only had one pant's leg?

And yet this is what so many music lovers,or the folks who aren't concerned about retrieving all the details,would have us believe.

They are perfectly content with the sound of their systems and don't feel the need to push the envelope.

I find the pursuit of details and lost nuggets of musical information to be very stimulating, and as such, a night of listening is a real adventure.

My guess is that the other half are more comfortable with a system that is less than resolving, and less revealing of inner detail.Or a one pant leg pair of pants system.

Well I know we all fly by the seat of our pants when we build our systems,but it seems that the folks who are content with one pant's leg are mostly unaware that the other pant's leg is missing.Perhaps, also unaware that there is a whole world out there enjoying pants with two pant's legs.

So while I seek to stimulate my senses, others are seeking to numb their senses.
A numbing down of society?

Or maybe they have never heard a system that can retrieve loads of inner detail that can also be very easy on the ears?

Someone has mentioned that audiophiles tune their systems and so that only certain types of music or components sound pleasing to their ears.

That's true.
That's why there are so many different companies and components to choose from.Aren't we lucky?

We get to decide.
No one is telling us what to choose.

When I was younger, all that mattered to me was how deep and loud I could make the bass go in my system.So I voiced my system with gear that gave me that.

I've moved on, and discovered that there's a lot of other things that are more important. And that great bass by and of itself is only one aspect of music.There's more to the equation.
Balance is a word that comes to mind, and a well balanced system is lacking nothing nor is there too much of anything.And that goes for detail.

How can you have too much detail?
You can't add anymore detail than was on the recording, but you sure can loose a lot of it.

Everything needs to be in it's place,just the way it's was intended to be at the recording session.
If the background vocals weren't integral to the music then why did they bother recording them ?
Why then,settle for a system that will keep them hidden?

It's all music,you paid for it, the producer charged you for it,but you don't care to listen to it?
It's too much information?

If it is then accuracy doesn't matter at all.
Give me meat and potatoes, or so it would seem.
Anything else and it's a waste of my chewing time.

The old bass heavy system of years gone by was lacking in resolution, but it rocked, even if I didn't know there were three guitars four background singers and several other assorted instruments buried in the muck.

When I revisit those old recordings from my youth and play them on my system today, I am amazed at how much more there is to them besides bass whacks.I enjoy them on a completely different level today.

Coming at this topic from a muscian's point of view, there is as much music in the space between the notes as there is in the notes themselves.

If all the spaces and the notes are blurred or indistinguishable, how can the music be enjoyed?If you can't hear all that the recording engineer put into the recording,you are doing him, the artist and yourself a disservice.

If only a portion of the musical information is retrieved, then one is only enjoying a portion of the musical experience.You are denying yourself the full experience.
It's the sundae without the whipped cream and cherry on top.

Which brings up another old saying, "you don't know what you are missing".

RE***The intense lighting in a hospital operating room will be more revealing than the light emanating from a fireplace, but I will always prefer to gaze at, even the most flawlessly beautiful woman, by firelight. It’s not less truthful, it’s just another aspect of the truth.***

I like that.

Did anyone get the point i was trying to make with the "moving goal post analogy" and the "inherent futility of seeking... quote unquote... "hi fidelity" across a BROAD range of recordings?

Am i alone and crazy on this point or what? Yay or nay? (smile)

While i can appreciate how moving up to more exotic gear (so called "higher fidelity"(yes and no)) can improve the sound of SOME recordings ...I don't appreciate what it does to OTHER recordings. These other recordings, i would argue are not necessarily "poor" recordings. SOME of these just APPEAR to be poor. The problem is...that the system is too revealing so as to not compliment certain BRANDS of recordings.

Take for example... "tape hiss". If a state of the art system reveals tape hiss but a lesser system does not and therefore does not let that aspect interfere with the music...How can it be said that the state of the art system is categorically better? Isn't a system that doesn't reveal the tape hiss but still keeps the music in tact, isn't it actually "better" since being able to hear the "tape hiss" wasn't the goal or intention of either the producers or the artists as part of the playback? That is they would not want or expect a system to playback the "hiss" ALONG with THEIR MUSIC and have it be called a good playback system.

It doesn't mean they had a "weak system" with which they recorded since they couldn't spot the hiss when they were in the studio mixing room. For that time it might very well be they had a very good studio system.

So, say you are sincere about your quest for hi fidelity and want to make no compromises in any area!...how are you going to get it across a broad range of music? ..."hi fidelity" (hi fidelity my foot!)

It seems we would need to own several system's to accommodate each era of recording quality and "type". Now, if you don't want to do that (i certainly don't)...you're basically stuck? How do you achieve your goal of hi fidelity? You don't. You ultimately have to compromise. But "hi fidelity" and "compromise" ...to me... is a contradiction in terms? That's my beef with "hifi". (I mean, i am happy and content with hifi in some areas but in others i am not)

Some recordings are in fact not poor (as some highly resolving system would seem to tell), they are just DIFFERENT and are better served on a different kind of system belonging to that period.

Their will of course be exceptions and it should be understood this is true in degrees.

Take for example the 80's ? song "never surrender" by cory hart.

Why can it be said that on my lesser system years back, i concluded it to be a "great sounding recording" and with my new system i conclude it to be a "good sounding recording"?

The former was more pleasurable than the latter. What criteria or test do we determine the truth of whether or not it is a good recording? The new system?.... that reveals "a tape hiss" or ...the older system?... that does not?

Which is "hi fidelity" in this one specific example and which is not?

On a different recording you may have a different winner.

***The intense lighting in a hospital operating room will be more revealing than the light emanating from a fireplace, but I will always prefer to gaze at, even the most flawlessly beautiful woman, by firelight. It’s not less truthful, it’s just another aspect of the truth.***

Beauty or truth?

Maybe the best way to determine whether or not one has a "hi fidelity" system is to ask oneself "how MUSICAL is this system...how much do i enjoy listening to ALL my collection?"(irregardless of ANYTHING else...) and when you can say it is in fact very musical! then you have in fact found YOUR brand of "hi fidelity".

.

“...even silence, is music."

Hey! That’s what my neighbors used to say :-)

Phaelon, as you may be aware, many modern composers in fact believe that all noise, even silence, is music. John Cage being the primary exponent of the theory. Nice post, by the way.

"Since you mentioned hospital lighting,the next time you go in for an operation, ask them to do the job by candle lite ,because it makes you feel more comfortable.”

Thank you for making my point. Your interest seems to focus on the science of reproducing sound. Notice that I didn’t say music, I said sound. And that’s fine. But not for me. I can’t prove what I believe - that music has a substance and appeal that goes beyond what our cognitive mind can even hear. But take all the sound measurements you want of a piece of music, and I’ll bet that those measurements can be duplicated non-musically.

Only a fool believes that the more facts he has, the closer to the truth he is.
And I would suggest the same relation holds between details and music. Music is more that a collection of details. And I’ll go even further and say that, IMO, it is possible for details to actually lead away from the musical truth.

There is no rationality to our enjoyment of music. It’s appeal has nothing to do logic or reasoning. But those are exactly the tools that some of us insist on using in order to determine musicality. I think it’s fair to ask: When does sound become music? When I was 9 years old, I began taking trumpet lessons. My family and neighbors would take great issue with anyone who suggested that the product was ever musical.

Since you mentioned hospital lighting,the next time you go in for an operation, ask them to do the job by candle lite ,because it makes you feel more comfortable.

I would agree that most audio systems reveal certain aspects of the truth,so it can be said that the most revealing systems should be the most truthful?
I think they are.

Where you want to stop is your choice,as I stated, most people have only heard a fraction of the musical detail that is on the recordings thay have purchased.

And that's just not because they aren't chasing the latest class A components.

It's mostly because they have failed to optimize the system that they have that is the reason why they are being robbed of all of the music.They don't sweat the details, or go the extra mile to properly set up the system, and fail to optimize the power, the room and place the gear on proper stands.
I never felt a stand was anything but a stand until I got my Grand Prix audio rack.
Again, everything matters,you get back what you put in.

Hey I can enjoy music on modest system,because I enjoy the music.
Put that music on an even beytter system and I enjoy it even more.

My first system was a humble all in one TV, radio, record player built into a console purchased in the early 50's by my parents,mono only.

Then I was introduced to a friend's system of separates in the early 1970's and when I heard for the first time background vocals and instruments on my lps,things I never knew were there, I was hooked.

This is why I can't go back.
The old system did it's job of playing music ,it made me want to listen and I could learn the bass parts,but oh my, I was missing so much more.

The added information added to my enjoyment.

This is what intrigues me.

People have embraced High Def TV,and I doubt would ever want to go back to old black and white tv of 1970's quality, yet they long for that old sound of the hifi gear from that era.

So what's so evil about a high def audio system?
Why are the folks who have such systems named "gear heads" and those who don't are called " music lovers"?

Why is one group reviled and the other revered?

Aren't they listening to the same thing, music?

I think the reason for the outbursts of anger for the newer more resolving gear is a backlash at the cost of entry for such systems.

Or it's nostalgia, and that has nothing to do with the music per se, we can be nostalgic about anything at any time in history.Go listen to Archie Bunkers lament about the good old days.

The past will always be golden, the big firsts in our lives can never be duplicated.Remembered, but never duplicated.

70's music played back thru 70's gear may bring back golden memories and warm and fuzzy feelings, but they won't bring back the hair you've either lost or that's turned grey.

It's memories and memories are great and can be relived,but why relive them at the level you did way back then?

When I go back and play some of my music from my youth,I am amazed at how some of those recordings stack up to the best of todays recordings.
And that is from a musical point of view.

Most of the new music of today I find very derivative.
And that's not a bad thing.
Rock and roll is a captive of it's own making.There's only so much you can do within the confines of the style of the music.
And yet it has continued to flourish and never went away as they said it would in the 50's.

Listening to some of my early Chet Atkins lps in mono through the Steelhead reveal how really well recorded those simply recorded lps were.

The music is fresh and lifelike, even thought the style is dated,the muscianship and the sound of the lp is much better than when I used to listen to it back in the day on the old folk's system.

There's no going back for me.

Lacee makes a very important point. Any musician would agree that we would rather listen to a poor recording of one of our favorite musicians than an excellent one of someone mediocre. While I appreciate that a great many people in this hobby are into it mainly for the toys and the science of it, IMO they are often missing the forest for the trees.

"The joy of discovery is what moves me."

"I would presume it to be akin to the archeologist,who after painstakingly rubbing off thousands of years of dirt and debris,discoveries a treasure that was hidden behind all that muck.

"Why not want to hear it all?” "The way it really was,in all it's sonic splendor or inspite of it?”

Lacee,
While I appreciate audio's scientific and technical achievements , they aren’t what endear me to audio.

The intense lighting in a hospital operating room will be more revealing than the light emanating from a fireplace, but I will always prefer to gaze at, even the most flawlessly beautiful woman, by firelight. It’s not less truthful, it’s just another aspect of the truth.

If I might add a couple of more views.

The joy of discovery is what moves me.

I would presume it to be akin to the archeologist,who after painstakingly rubbing off thousands of years of dirt and debris,discoveries a treasure that was hidden behind all that muck.

Well I like to discover all there is to be discovered in a recording, even if the object of my attention isn't perfect afterall,I can live with that if the object or the music is something I enjoy.
Or in other words, I don't need two arms to fully apreciate what a work of art the staue of Venus is.
That should pretty much sum it up about accepting the warts and all scenario.
Because I am also a musician and realized years ago that I will never achieve the ultimate replica of the live event in my room(I have a constant working reality of how live music sounds)I quit striving for that elusive daydream.

Perhaps this hasn't been presented by me clearly enough.
Perfection for me is the warts and all presentation, and the closer to that the better I feel my system has improved.

If I can't tell the difference between my great recordings and the lesser ones, then my system isn't at the level that it should be.But for others this is just fine, if it lets them enjoy the music.

But who said I am not enjoying the music?
The music is just as enjoyable,poorly recorded or not.
The music doesn't change, just the quality of it's reproduction.

A Jeff Beck solo still knocks me out, even if the recording isn't a high end type of recording.
Talent and musicianship can't be destroyed by a flawed recording process.
When it's there it is there.

I would prefer a poor recording of Jeff Beck than a superior recording of someone several steps below his level of ability.
What good is a great recording if you never want to listen to it because of mediocre playing or talent?

But what is really great is when you have a super musician like Jeff Beck who has been recorded with the utmost care to preserve as much fidelity as possible.
Why would I want to settle for a system that is unable to make the distinction between the two?

If everything sounds great, then what really sounds great has lost it's meaning and importance.
Quality(as it has for the most part in modern recordings)becomes less and less important when you dumb it down and compress it for the sake of being louder than the next guy.
If it sounds good enough in MP3 on earbuds, then what else matters?

I hate to harken back to the old days(yes before I got into music or HiFi)the less they had to work with made for some spookily real recordings.

And when you listen to great systems that reveal even the tape hiss from the recording session,that is a flaw that tells me I am hearing it the way it was and as close to the event of the recording that there is.
IF I can hear the tape hiss, this isn't a flaw to my ears, it's a big bonus, because I know that little else from that recording session is hidden from me.

The decay and ring of the cymbals will shimmer away as they did when captured by the mic,and I will enjoy that right along with the tape hiss.

So for me there is no downside to having a highly resolving system.
It's what keeps me in the hobby , the quest for components and accessories that more finely hone the resolve of the system.

To go the opposite way and settle for less is the road to mediocrity.
Why go there if you aren't forced to?

Why settle for 3/4 of the music you've paid for just because it's easy on the ears in a compromised system?
What about the other 1/4 that is MIA?

Even if that missing 1/4 reveals that the recording isn't the best ever,for me it's just as important as the other 3/4.

Maybe more so.

Why not want to hear it all?

The way it really was,in all it's sonic splendor or inspite of it?

Why does reality, warts and all, have to take a back seat
in this hobby and why has the focus shifted to how listenable the sound is as opposed to how accurate it is?

None of the highly resolving systems that I have experienced ever gave me listener fatigue.

Just the opposite, they lead to extended listening sessions and the quest for more music.

It's hard to be happy with too much focus on "flaws" no matter what because they are always there, and not just in audio.

The unrelenting pursuit of perfection is a sure road to eventual unhappiness. The ability to wean pleasure out of most any decent hand you are dealt is the key.

Its a dilemma. You have to strike a realistic balance between both. Neither seeking perfection nor accepting imperfection alone is enough.

.

RE***Don't give up Vertigo,and please don't regress.***

Appreciate the encouragement. Thanks, fellow audiophile sojourner...

I liked your "school grades" analogy.

I appreciate your response but i wonder if you have really understood my points? The reason why i wonder if you have understood my points is because i am having trouble understanding why you would encourage me not to regress or give up since the reality is....that the goal is unattainable?

So, it is not that i am a pessimist, rather it is that i am a realist! I like to think that i am able to see things as they are.

I haven't reached a definitive conclusion on the question but i have to ask myself ...why strive for an impossible goal if striving FOR that goal only leads to the displeasure of frustration? I thought the goal of hi fidelity was pleasure and satisfaction? (i smile) The other questions i have to ask are... what's the goal? Deriving pleasure from "FIDELITY" that is only available to a select number of recordings on a system that has been specifically dialed in for those recordings or deriving pleasure from a broad number of recordings on which the focus is "catching the value of tune" and actually achieving that!!?

What really is the truth about the relationship between pleasure and "hi fidelity"?

(for me) It depends on the day... Some days i am deriving pleasure from the PURSUIT of attaining fidelity and some days i am not, some days it has the opposite effect. Some days, i just want to listen to all kinds of music and recordings that are simply euphonic and that's just fine with me cause euphonic equals pleasure. (but i know to those who are seeking hi fidelity "euphonic" can be a dirty word!)(smile)

re***It's is a bit of a shock when you hear a really superb system and discovering how great all the music sounds,but that the system is revealing all the flaws as well.***

In light of the above statement and some of your previous posts how would you reconcile your "paradox of high resolution systems" with your above statement that (paraphrasing) "the superb system makes "all" the music sound great"?

My guess would be that you still are able to derive pleasure from "poor sounding recordings"?

It is difficult for me to make blanket statements about "poor sounding recordings" since i prefer to comment on a case by case basis but generally i feel the "warts" detract from "the original point of the song" on a "hi performance system" that has been dialed in with a certain bent toward certain recordings and therefore i suspect in some cases a midfi system(or a system with a different "bent") would serve certain types of recordings better and serve the "songs" better.

This brings me to a point i alluded to in my previous post but perhaps i failed to clearly communicate.

It was the "moving goal post" analogy.

Make adjustments to your system so that recordings of certain well regarded recordings sound sublime then play other perceived "lesser" recordings and the system shows up the lesser recordings for supposedly what they are ("poor recordings") relative to the better recordings BUT if you were to focus your system adjustments for some time on those so called "poor recordings" i argue you can make those sound better than you believed they could. Once you succeed at making those lesser recordings sound better than you thought now try those well regarded recordings, now they sound worse than how you remembered they could sound.

See how you can't win? This is what i mean by "the goal posts are constantly moving and shifting" Which is the part of "hi fidelity" that i perceive is absurd and a exercise in "expensive futility".

So, what i mean to say is that to some degree it is an oversimplification to say recordings are objectively better or worse in regard to "serving the music" because there is no standard by which to measure this. ?? Alot of how a recording will sound has to do with how you've dialed in your system.

One might mistakenly CONCLUDE a record is a poor recording but is it in fact a poor recording simply because it sounds bad on your system compared to a "better recording" because your system has been dialed in for that kind of a recording? Those with midfi system's might not understand the level of the kind of nuances i am talking about which can compliment a certain type of recording to the alienation of many others(unfairly so). As you "go up" in hifi the double edged sword gets sharper and sharper.

If you tried that "poor record" on a system that was considered great in the 80's you might really enjoy that record the way it was INTENDED for that time and that period and change your opinion about the quality of that recording.

So, with this context added and if all this is true then i hope folks can i understand me when i say that at the very least, to some degree ..."hi fidelity" is an exercise in futility and "snake oil" since the myriad of contingencies keep the goal posts constantly moving. Once we make the "good recordings" sound great by dialing in the system for those, now the perceived "poor recordings" sound worse then they really should. Once we've made the "poor recordings" sound much better than we thought they could, now the perceived "good recordings" sound only mediocre or poor.

I'm not saying i'm right...I'm saying...i think i'm right...this is how i see it.

Remember sisyphus in greek mythology and his boulder(not the amp, no ...the rock)?

I remember the sound of one of my previous systems it was...systemdek turntable with humble profile arm, with denon 103, manley stingray, lehmann audio black cube, nautilus 805's , cardas golden reference interconnect.

Hey, this was a very musical system! its worth about 5 grand used. Now, just the arm i own is worth just about as much as that whole system.

Does the system i have now sound better than that one? From my memory of the two sounds i would have to answer sometimes yes ...and...sometimes ,no and maybe some times..."different".Some 80's and 90,s stuff, i think, in a general way could maybe bring more pleasure on the old system because the resolution was lower and because that old system found better synergy with those types of records. That old system has no where near the clarity,neutrality,timbrel fidelity and transparency of my current system but from my fuzzy memory i remember some recordings "serving the music better" than they currently do on my system even though it can be said in a certain sense my present system should sound better.

That old system could sound bright,colored and grainy but it was a toe tapper. Overall i think i much prefer the virtues of my present system, things sound real, but that other system could be alot of fun too! The old system was like a fun toy my present system is more like a sophisticated instrument? Its all very interesting.

I guess deciding to regress or not will come down to which way i finally, prefer to listen to music.

RE***Which is more accurate: digital or vinyl?***

It has to be decided on a case by case basis, from track to track, from system to system, from quality of set up to quality of set up, from player to player, from cartridge to cartridge, on and on the list can go.

.



.

Don't give up Vertigo,and please don't regress.

It's is a bit of a shock when you hear a really superb system and discovering how great all the music sounds,but that the system is revealing all the flaws as well.

But this is the direction that I want to travel further towards, and as I've said ,doing things about the power to my gear and treating the room, really has gotten me closer.

Not closer to reality, but closer to the reality of the recording and playback process which if you really think about it is reality.

It's all an illusion, but the better the illusion, the more I enjoy the music.

Somefolks don't enjoy this type of realism, and rather enjoy systems that cover up some of the nasties of the recording chain.

To me if it sounds like a bad recording , then that is what it is,I don't want it to mask the impefections,because if a system is good at that it is also masking great recordings.

It's like grading all the smart kids and the less smart ones, lumping them altogether and giving the class one big C .

If I have some grade A recordings I don't want them reproduced at a C level.

Sure everything sounds alright, just like all the kids get a pass, but is that the way we want things to be?

It's just breeding mediocrity, and sorry for the preaching, but this seems to be where society is at.

But why settle for it if you don't have to.

Assembling a truthful system isn't hard or even that expensive to do, if you pay attention to a few things that some folks describe as snake oil.

Well snake oil to them is nirvana to me, if it gets me a system that is revealing of everything there is about a piece of recorded music.

I'll take my music, warts and all, over music that's rendered all sweet and gooey.

But that's they way I like it, it's not the way you or anyone else has to like it.

And from all that I've been reading on forums and in reviews, it seems the goo is the more popular.

I guess I am a coffee black type and the others are triple triple lovers.

In the end we are still listening to the music and that's what matters,no matter what it's played back thru.

Lacee, my 60's dylan first pressings are some of the most impressive recordings i have in my small collection. I have heard many "incarnations" of the playback of these same lps... change... as my system goes through it's changes. I have a record in my head of the several different ways i have these lps sound and can compare them with each other. Some were more romantic and colored and some were more neutral and clinical.

RE***I once had a debate on this forum with someone who flat out told me I didn't know what I was talking about, because I said that early 50's and 60's jazz lps sounded more "real" than most of todays recordings did.
He said we have progressed and a lot of advancements have been made.***

I'm not surprised. From the little experience i have in this area i would probably take your side and agree with what you have said. It seems today everything is overproduced and over processed? I'd like to see a return to simple analog tape recordings, with sparse tracks and limited manipulation.

I think at the heart of the problem of "hifi" is the myriad of variables that exist both from a recording standpoint and from a playback standpoint.

That is...you can't build a system that will play all the types of recordings that exist out there equally well? You can dial in your system for certain types of recordings but then once you've done that you fail to serve the other types of recordings.In other words, just when you've set the ball up and are ready to kick, you look up and the goal posts have been moved! So basically, it seems that "hifidelity" is a futile exercise in so far as if one sets their goal to have all their software sound perfect.

When i started out, i was very naive, romantic and idealistic.

Lately, as i have reflected, i have almost come to the conclusion that the term "hi fidelity" was probably a term originally coined simply to sell the "snake oil" of "great sound". Which essentially means that they have hung the billboard of "hifidelity"... when the stuff in the bottle has no power to heal! And we all bought some! (I laugh)

Sorry if my outlook is a bit bleak but it only comes on the heals of that romantic idealist that was full of hopes of an attainable ideal and who has become to some degree disappointed! Where i have arrived and where i set out to go are not the same thing.

But...I can't complain. Some of the promises of hifi are being delivered, i guess, i just need to lower my expectations.

Maybe the ideal is to build the system that is between midfi plus and below state of the art.

I think i might put together a system that is just a glorified getto blaster. (smile)

Vertigo I am glad you have picked up on some of my thoughts, and are beginning to understand what I must be poor at explaining.

I did say that the less resolving, mid fi systems and most vintage gear, have a way of sounding more "musical" to the folks who like to use that term.

I try not to use that term,it means something different to everyone with a system.

Read some of the non professional takes on most high end gear and you will see that a lot of folks don't like the sound of high resolving gear no matter how much synergy there is.Too much detail, fatiguing, non musical, are some descriptors that I've read.
Give them an old 12 inch driver in an untuned particle board box and Sansui receiver and they have found their musical nirvana.
And good for them if that's what makes them happy.
But sorry that's not my idea of a good time.
If it doesn't sound "musical" or nice to their ears, then it's not very good.
Musical to them and not musical to me,and vice versa.

We both know what we like, and settle with the sound that we like.

My preference is to enjoy at 100% the recordings that are well recorded and sound that way thru my system.
I am perfectly content with the fact that this may only account for 40% of my recorded collection.
I would rather be content enjoying the differences than never being able to know that there are any.
Or in other words, I would rather enjoy a small percentage of my collection to the max than to enjoy my whole collection at a lesser degree.

In other words again, I don't want a system that drags the good recordings down to the level of the poor ones.

There's no pleasure in that for me.

I will still enjoy the musicianship and the music on all the recordings, just not the "sound" of those recordings.

And this is why I can't enjoy systems that are low in resolution .To me they make everything sound the same,and I know that's not how it is in the real world.

If the system makes some recordings less pleasurable because for the first time the music is being heard thru a system that isn't rolled off in the treble or seriously compromised in high frequency retrieval,then it's not the fault of the gear.

The gear is only telling it like it is.
So what is more realistic?
A system capable of distinguishing between recordings and studios or a system that homogenizes everything with no distinction between well recorded music and poorly recorded music?

Again, check out Harley's take on the sound of the early jazz recordings or even some of Chet Atkins early mono lps and tell me they don't sound more "real"(for want of a better term)than most everything recorded in the last few years,using analog or digital.

Until a person hears how uncluttered and unprocessed this music is,they don't have a clue about what I or Harley is talking about.

I once had a debate on this forum with someone who flat out told me I didn't know what I was talking about, because I said that early 50's and 60's jazz lps sounded more "real" than most of todays recordings did.
He said we have progressed and a lot of advancements have been made.
I stated, that the old engineers were masters at capturing the sound of the instruments in the room they were played in more accurately because they didn't rely on audio processing and gimmicks and "fixing it in the mix" or even post production work on pro tools.

So when I say that my friend's system reveals these differences even more than mine does,it doesn't mean that the music is any less enjoyable thru his system.
In fact I enjoy it more.Because it gives me a clearer picture about what is going on behind the scenes.

It only demonstarates how many differences there are in recordings, how much the quality varies from studio to studio, label to label and in the amount of processing some recordings get.
It's very easy to distinguish between purist recordings and the ones that aren't.

In other words, his system and most of the better system pull this off, but it's not the perfect cup of tea for the folks who want to have a nice warm and fuzzy relationship with their music and hifi system.

So like I"ve mentioned, there are two ways at the least for folks to persue this hobby.

It's often mentioned that folks who invest large sums of money in the gear are just gear heads.
Partly true, guilty as charged.

But it's all for a good cause.The ultimate enjoyment of recorded music.Which for me is the enjoyment of hearing the trail of reverb at the end of a Dylan harmonica recording that just isn't there in my room or any place else, outside of that studio.

When you are a musician, you can give up and just play the music and forget about the quality, because you know it's not real.
Or you can strive to build a system that at least gets you close enough to "real" to know it when it ain't.

.

(i left two posts today)

High resolution and timbre.

Between High resolution and portrayal of instrumental timbres.

You can have any one of these combos

1.Low resolution, very good timbre
2.low resoution, poor timbre
3,high resolution, poor timbre
4,high resolution, very good timbre

It does not follow in every case that high resolution necessarily must equal poor portrayal of timbre.

It is a question not just of how high the resolution (the amount of info it can read) but just as important, is HOW that info is portrayed in RELATION to a live instruments timbre.

Play any fine instrument live. This is the embodiment of "lots of info and faithfulness to timbre" (well, there's nothing to be faithful to since it the real thing)

It is wrong, i think if anyone should argue that.... as resolution goes up portrayal of timbres must go down and therefore things necessarily must sound less real.

As long as a systems high "information" retrieval is FAITHFUL to "timbre" at the same time... there is no paradox necessary or at least there is no paradox on CERTAIN recordings that find synergy with what the rest of the system is doing.

What i suspect is happening then in systems that are pushing state of the art in resolution is...that they are operating within a narrower and narrower "range" ...increasing the demand on recordings that aren't "sympathetic" to that narrow range and when the unique signature of how that system was put together finds the right synergy with a recording that has a certain "bent" to it, shazaam, wow, this sounds amazing! But the double edged sword is (with that very narrowed range it is operating in) it has now "alienated" many other records in the collection from sounding good because there are so many variables between different "recordings."

Hmm? Maybe i'll have to become one of those guys who goes back to 'midfi' or vintage because of this. There's a very compelling argument that could be made to justify doing so.

Maybe i should have kept my marantz 2270 and 2325's and just be done with it. What's so great about great timbre? Is it really worth all that money just to acquire it on a few recordings? How many times do we keep walking when we pass a live street busker, or i've seen people fall asleep at live classical music events? (haha) (just thinking aloud)

Maybe the best is to find some middle ground.

Which is better? 1.to have a few things in your collection sound sublime and the rest sound mediocre OR 2.to just have most sounding pretty darn good?

If i did go back to midfi i know that i would be going from... SOME things sound real ...to... nothing ever sounds indistinguishable from real.

But maybe that would be ok to me, since as i've stated before music is much more than JUST having perfect instrument timbre.

.

.

Orignally there was a disagreement as to whether the playing of a live hohner marine band harmonica in one's home is acceptable to use as a reference for determining the quality of a systems playback of the same instrument. Basically it was argued that it couldn't be used because Bob dylan playing his and one playing there's alters the timbre because of a couple of things.

1. Each man/ women has a different body structure their "personal timbre"
2. playing style or "tone" is different

Now, i think it becomes important to ask..."how much can 1 and 2 alter the timbre of a marine band harmonica?"

That is...To what DEGREE is it changed? to what DEGREE can it be changed by 1 and 2 ?

Very little . Every time i have heard another player using this brand harmonica live, it has always sounded exactly the same. Using ones "ear" one can distinguish the players style and then using ones 'ear' you can listen for the timbre of that instrument.(the attributes of that brand harmonica that make it distinct both from other harmonicas and other instruments in general)

Imagine you have a 1000 litres of pure water and add 1 drop of chlorine to it and mix. You taste the water "before and after". As the drop of water is to changing 1000 litres of pure water into something else so is a person's "personal timbre" to changing the timbre of the harmonica. Whatever IS the true ratio, (2 drops, 10 drops of water?) who knows, but the point is...whatever it is...its negligible.

So, though we have it seems generally agreed a persons 'personal timbre' does in fact have some influence we need to be CAREFUL we don't go TOO FAR in our understanding of just how much it can change the inherent timbre of a hohner harmonica.

Personal timbre in regard to "human voice" can vary in vast degrees (that's a different story) but the difference between 10 different men playing the same hohner will be minuscule and indistinguishable. (again, i am not talking about playing styles.)(playing styles obviously can vary to massive degrees!)

I love what was said about differing guitar tones because i am familiar with all those things mentioned. I am a proud owner of a '86 reissue of a '57 fender stratocaster built in corona california. Which replaced a japanese 72 reissue telecaster. These two have their similarities and their differences in tone.

As i think the story goes at some point fender changed hands and the plant was move from fullerton to corona or vice versa . The '84 '57 fullerton reissue is the one that gets alot/more... of attention but when i once asked a guy if the tone would be different from mine, he said... no. Well, no two guitars in reality are identical simply because they are not the same guitar.

This begs the question..."will all hohner marine band harmonica's made in the same plant with the same parts, with the same pool of "shift workers" , in the same month/year sound the same?" Yes and no.

Yes, in that there are quality control measures put in place to assure that before a harmonica leaves for market it represents a certain set of standards the company champions. No, in the sense that the odd one might slip through quality control with some kind of problem and no in the sense that if you had the right instruments to measure and identify certain parameters you could distinguish from among them. I would say that there is more consistency in regard to timbre between marine band harmonicas then fender guitars probably because the fender uses much more wood and that wood plays a pretty big part in imparting the final sound of a fender. Of course there are more factors then just its choice of woods, for example, guitars have more parts than a harmonica and therefore this introduces more potential for variability of tone.

So, if someone should choose to use a brand of harmonica as a reference test he can have great confidence in this kind of testing because there is a high degree of manufacturing consistency from one harmonica to the next within the same brand and production run and the differences between those never makes that brand harmonica indistinguishable from other brands.

Switching gears.

In regard to resolution....

I have strived to build a system that will reproduce timbres PERFECTLY. That is my goal. Since as i mentioned.... it is one of my highest audiophile values. (second being dynamics/speed).

If some want TOO, to make this their goal they will realize that at some point he will need to make a decision. Do you want most of your records and cds to sound generally pretty darn good? or do you want to REALLY go for PERFECT timbre(resolving the extremely fine nuances of timbre) and therefore drop the percentages of the former so that now only 4 percent sound STELLAR , many sound ok and some sound terrible/poor?

RE***The deeper you get in resolution, the more you can recognize real from recorded, which doesn't takeaway any of the fun of listening to music.***

Yes AND no! In my experience...the higher the resolution the more you CANT recognize real from recorded which adds to the emotional experience and stuns/shocks you. So, yes the high resolution does this to poor recordings but with some recordings hifidelity and "resolution" is doing its job making things sound more and more real!"

The goal should be to look for components that are high resolution and make no sacrifice in regard to timbrel fidelity. And...that...in some instances is a realistic and achievable goal. Some playback should in fact sound real. The percentages and instances when it occurs should be going up NOT down even if the instances are rare. There was a time when NO aspect of my playback sounded REAL, now it happens in some cases.

How can someone say..."i have the best/highest resolution but nothing sounds real???" Whoever is having this experience...i must conclude...DOESN'T in fact HAVE the best resolution?

I agree with the joke.... "my system is so good, so resolving all my records are unlistenable!" Which implies the person has somewhere somehow started to head the wrong direction and needs to re asses things.

RE***Like I said it's a paradox,we were all brainwashed into thinking it should sound like the real thing in real time and space, when in reality, if it sounds like that in your system, it can't be real.****

Why not? Do you KNOW it can't sound real or do you BELIEVE it can sound real?

RE***If a system has the resolution to let you hear the clues and studio artifacts, then you are that much closer to recreating the way the music was recorded at the time and in that space.
You are getting a better reproduction of the reproduction, warts and all.****

Agreed and that is good but only so long as the "warts" sound real since warts in our natural environment have a natural character all their own but if a system produces those warts WITH artifacts attached to them then that needs to be addressed. I have no qualms with warts so long as they sound real.

There's something i'd like to put out there for people to discuss if they should choose to do so. It is about "cooking up" a sound so as to mimic real instruments. Here's my hypothesis.

It is possible to ADD! attributes to your stereo playback of an instruments timbrel character (after the fact) that:

1. Were unable, failed... to be captured for whatever reason by the "recording system"
and that
2.Despite no. 1 it is possible to REINTRODUCE that fine attribute by the "art of system building"
so that
3. The timbre of an instrument can sound indistinguishable in (some cases)from real.

To use the analogy of "cooking". Suppose you are making a tomato sauce with non organic tomatoes but you buy and taste a organic tomato and that is your reference for what a natural organic tomato tastes like. Now, the non organic tomato is missing some of the organic tomatoes attributes but they do in fact share many similarities in other aspects of what constitutes the taste of an organic tomato. There are other attributes in an organic tomato but one of the most consistent faults of regular tomatoes is the lack of that sunshine sweetness that occurs from proper ripening. I noticed if i use white sugar it doesn't fool me into thinking i used organic tomatoes in my sauce but if i use a teaspoon of honey... it does. Now, when i use honey i am getting closer to a real organic tomato taste but even with that ingredient i can make the error of not using enough or too much honey it is then that the tomatoes "timbre" (smile) will be "inaccurate and "not true"".

Analogies at some point always break down but i think it's still a valuable analogy. If i know and can source the sound of a real instrument and i can use it along with exotic materials and designs at our disposal in hifidom perhaps i can push and pull the timbres to "lock in" on the sound of trumpet or harmonica during my stereo playback of those instruments, irregardless of the failures of the initial recording process.

For example, What if the image size of the performers vocals had become too large and unnatural (not like real life) because of something in the chain from "recording to pressing" ....can't i control image size in a whole list of different ways available to me by system building? Yes, i would argue, you can.

What if a hohner was recorded too thin (or comes across as sounding too thin)? What if it comes across as sounding like it has tin reeds instead of the shiny smooth stainless steel reeds? or like a rubber comb harmonica instead of a plastic comb harmonica? What if the harmonica comes across as being 1foot wide instead of a few inches wide? I argue this can be fixed to sound as a real harmonica sounds in every single regard.

Of course in low resolution, highly distorted, colored, slow systems they won't stand a chance in imitating a real harmonica. What about in class A where the entire signal is amplified (less manipulation), in short simple circuits using good silver conductors, in quiet, neutral, low distortion speakers that use fast powerful neo magnets and no crossover, carts that use neo magnets and solid gold, etc, etc, then, there stands a much better chance to realize the goal of impeccable timbres.

Synergy. There is no clearly defined standard by which all audiophile use to guarantee synergy. There is a general understanding of what generally will work and generally we are right about it and get general results but no one knows where synergy will be found at least at the level at which i am talking about it. If i am looking for "a little of this but not too much of that" can i ever know if x wire or Z component will deliver in the quantity and quality that i am looking to it for, with nothing more or nothing less added or subtracted? For the most part audiophiles are clueless in regard to the outcome as to how exactly the fine details of one component will mix with another and what that change will bring. All they can do is try it and see and then they will know. I think i will be waiting for a long time to see a 40 page book titled "Synergy: Where and how to find it" So,with this qualifier, it is in this sense that i say with regard to synergy "it's better to be lucky than good". The person who plays the big lotteries alot still never wins but it might happen that the person who plays rarely just happens to win the jackpot.

It is because of this that i often wonder just exactly how some peoples systems sound since there are so many out there that are very different and we are all quite isolated from them and ignorant as to how they sound and what is possible and what is not .

.

In musical instruments, no two are exactly the same.The timbre/tone were different from day of manufacture,let's look at guitars.

I've known a few guitar players who took great pains to find the "perfect" strat, yet to most they would all sound the same ,substitute tone or timbre, take your pick.
Vintage strat,Mexican vintage, far east,new USA manufactured, all sound differnt even before anyone starts to put their sonic signature to it, or start to play around with tone.

In each case some were warmer sounding , some thin, and a lot in between.Depends on the wood, the windings of the pickups the way they were set up,so many variables that make each Fender strat different from the next, never mind how they will sound when played by Hendrix, Clapton or Richard Thompson.
Each artist's style will then impose another colouration, and then in a recording session, so will the effects and electronics used to record the instruments alter those sounds even more.

I just finished reading Harley's last post in TAS, he mentions some of the flaws of modern recording process that I have eluded to before in this post and in others.

These flaws are more evident in todays recording than in the past.The better gear will accentuate these flaws as I said,lesser gear will make them more platable for the masses.

I hate to play the age card, but I grew up back in the mono record lp and tube/vinyl only period, and all my stage amps were orignally tubed.
The solid state bass amps had a lot more punch and volume, but lacked the roundness of the tube amps,now I settle for a Hybrid .Solid state amp, with tube pre section.

So for me,when I hear the way most recordings made today sound through a good hifi rig, I can hear the difference between it and the old purist recordings.

The tone of an old 50's Selmer sax,is much easier to discerne on the early recordings, as compared to some of the newer sax recordings which have been processed to make a sax sound like whatever the producer wants it to sound like.

So how can you compare anything recorded the modern way with any real instrument?
You have a better chance with older 'less'processed recordings, but you still have a lot of the sound of the real thing missing.

This is why the pursuit of accuracy can only be a pusuit to reproduce the accuracy of the recording.
And few if any of us will ever know when we have achieved the same accuracy as that of the master tape from the final mix listened thru the monitors in the studio plus the sound of the studio itself.

Sure we'll recognize the timbre of the trumpet,we can get that right in a recording and playback chain, but we've been able to do that for a long time and in fact,as Harley will support,we did it better in the past than in the here and now.

What I am saying is that when you assemble a system with the utmost care and believe me no stones were left unturned by my friend, and as far as synergy goes,synergy doesn't come by luck. He constantly improves his gear ( 40 Anniversay pre)as the gear improves he investigates how it will better his enjoyment and if it does only then is it added.
His system sounds the way it does because of the time effort and money that he spent putting it together, and it's all been about the music.

But like I keep saying, it's a double edged sword,well recorded music sounds great, poor recordings sound just what they are.
The system doesn't sugar coat the truth, it tells it like it is.

Somepeople may not like a system like that.

I do.
I don't mind listening to poorly recorded music if I like the music I can get over the way that it was recorded,but I regret that most of my favourite music has been poorly recorded,especially the music of the last couple of decades.But things do improve and some newer vinyl re-issues are worth the added cost if they stay true to the orignal and aren't over processed.

Getting back to tone and timbre,most systems even entry level do a great job at preserving both pretty much the way they were recorded, otherwise we wouldn't be able to tell if it's clarinet solo or trumpet solo.

How musicians and recording engineers can alter the tone so much kind of makes timbre seem irrelevant as far as I am concerned.
The timbre of the instrument as stated is fixed, the tones are not.They are as varied as the imagination of the artist and the producer wants them to be.And they are slaves to the recording and playback chain.

We listen to recordings, and whether they are digital or analog they are not accurate to the sound of a live unamplified, unrecorded instrument.

The deeper you get in resolution, the more you can recognize real from recorded, which doesn't takeaway any of the fun of listening to music.At least not for me.

If a system has the resoultion to let you hear the clues and studio artifacts, then you are that much closer to recreating the way the music was recorded at the time and in that space.
You are getting a better reproduction of the reproduction, warts and all.
That it is an altered form, different from how an instrument sounds in the "wild" as it were,doesn't matter to me.I accept it for what it is,and as such I know it's not the way the instrument would sound if it was played in front of me and I don't care that it doesn't.

Like I said it's a paradox,we were all brainwashed into thinking it should sound like the real thing in real time and space, when in reality, if it sounds like that in your system, it can't be real.Or in my perspective, it's not a real reproduction of the way that instrument sounded live before the air from the instrument(sax)struck the microphone diaphram and started down the road of distortions and alterations, far from the way it sounds in real life.

Again I have to state systems that do this are my preference, and this isn't the type of system for folks who just want to enjoy the music and relax.
It's mostly for the folks who take great pains experimenting with cables and power and room interaction, and it's not about just throwing a wad of cash up into the air and hoping for the best.

It's also something that evolves over the years, usually when one gains experience with a variety of components and interaction with systems better than their own, and being honest with themselves and admitting that" my system may not be the best there ever was or will be."

Can my friends system be bettered?
I am certain that it could, as certain as I know my system can be bettered,and so can everyone's.

But we all have to stop someplace,I can't speak for my friend,but I am almost done and I am indebted to him for shedding light on areas that needed to be addressed which I never considered as relevant.

Having learned from his experience,my system improved beyond what it was and now shares the same basic concepts as his.Granted to a lesser degree.

And as such,they are not accurate to the original instrument, and on a revealing system the differences are there

Hi guys - Frogman, thanks for your excellent post. You are so much better at explaining these things than I am. Vertigo, your last comparison to the human voice is exactly right as well. As Frogman said, the instrument becomes an extension of your body. One of my teachers talked about the need to feel "grounded" when you play, because of this. Wind instruments are very similar to the human voice. We manipulate the tone both with our airstream and with our "embouchres," or the muscles in our faces used to play. No recording really captures these subtle changes with total accuracy, which is one major reason why we musicians keep insisting that no matter how good the recording is and how good the playback system is, it is definitely not the same thing as hearing it live. And yes, the term "tone" is much more commonly used for this personal aspect of sound than "timbre." I did not use the term earlier so as not to add to the confusion, but I probably added to the confusion by not using it. Once again, I am glad I became a musician instead of a writer!

"and how the air uniquely resonates IN that person.”

Ah-Ha! And who determines how the air uniquely resonates in a wind instrument? The musician! That’s who. My formula survives the first wave. :-)

Phaelon, Frogman. Some really great points there! I like how you "tweaked" the definition of timbre, adding to it a new nuance.

So,essentially a harmonica HAS NO timbre!...that is...til it's played! (smile)

Agreed, but now there is the boundaries and limits of the degree of variation between the bodies that play it. There are alot of differences but imho the differences are not vast. We all basically know what a x brand trumpet sounds like or can learn what x brand trumpet sounds like if we wanted to and tried.

I just did a google search and i did discover what personal timbre is...

In regard to the human voice it is the unique way in which each persons vocal chords are uniquely structured/distinct and how the air uniquely resonates IN that person.

Lacee,

I don't know if i misunderstood you or not but i would not necessarily look to studio's as a reference for hi fidelity. I don't mean this as a blanket statement but i think it's fair to say that the goals of studio systems and home systems are slightly or greatly different. Isn't the goal of their speaker set up more as "monitors" to dissect the music to facilitate the recording process whereas home systems try to... you know, reproduce a musically satisfying sound?

Don't some studios set up speakers up high, behind mixing consoles and in positions that would be considered poor to audiophiles?

Lacee, i hear what you are saying about the "paradox of high resolution". I understand and know what you mean.

High resolution in systems CAN BE a paradox but it doesn't necessarily HAVE TO BE a paradox and certain cases isn't.

It is only when high resolution renders instruments timbres with artificial attributes that one experiences this paradox but what if the resolution goes way up but artifacts go way down at the same time?

Take for example that dylan harmonica track. First, i will mention that solid gold in the allaerts mc 1b mk2 cart creates this rich, lush, dense, tonal shading to certain instrumental timbres that you have to hear to understand.(this thing gives me a better chance/headstart at achieving the goal imho) Now what i have done and what i continue to do (when i'm up for it(not irritated by all the tweaking) is... i play back the track and try and pinpoint the unnatural artifact in the harmonica, if i note one then i try and adjust vta and vtf or cartridge torques. When i change one of those three paramaters then, naturally the others are effected and therefore a whole new range of possibilities is introduced again.(this is good news and bad news at the same time)(bad in that it increases the potential but bad because it means more tweaking!) It's a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. I try to get things sounding as best as i can with those contingencies but if the harmonica still doesn't sound real, then i go to moving cables around or interconnects, play the track and again try to pin point an artificial attribute in the timbre. Sometimes a change will introduce the attribute that is missing, like say, its correct timbral weight but in doing so i lose its resolution , in that the resolution now sounds mechanical. Ok no good...keep going! In retrospect, components that i felt weren't going to take me closer to the goal leave the system and others are introduced...so i guess it went something like this...

Years x many components x sourcing exotic components with exotic materials and designs x tweaking til the cows come home x failing x hundreds of listens x crossing my fingers x thinking...

Eventually you can dial in all the timbral attributes present in a harmonica and remove all the attributes that don't pertain to a harmonica.

How many attributes does the timbre of a harmonica have? 10, 20, 50, 100, ?

If one by one you topple each attribute and present them all at the same time what do you get? the sound of a real harmonica.

Anyways...as i am sure you will agree? resolution isn't in itself a bad thing. The question becomes of what order is the resolution? Is it mechanical, hashy, cold, clinical, like information not an instrument?

Or is it clear, neutral, uncolored, rich, natural?

Recently i discovered synergistic research cable company. The designer impressed me because he does not claim his most expensive cable is "what will do the trick" No, he grants that one of his cheaper cables "might do the trick" "better". I assume it is because he understands tweaking is necessary to find synergy and synergy is blind to dollars spent and even to materials utilized and the quantities in which they are present.

Anyways...once the harmonica is dialed in...i play a different record or genre and then poof, no more magic. Waaah!

I want to recommend to people to try solid pure gold as one of many materials to dial in good sound. Especially if you like classical, jazz,folk and vocals. These are the allaerts forte.

If...and its a big if...but it still might be true...if in order to reproduce timbres like reality a solid gold conductor is a necessary ingredient then even if a 50,000 dollar cd player wired in copper is utilized it still won't be able to reproduce reality irregardless of its price tag.

I think putting together a good system is an art as well as a "science". But...tell you guys something you didn't know!!!

.

"The materials and how they are executed in that instrument set the boundaries and limitations of the variable ways it can potentially sound but no player can ever play outside of those boundaries.”

Maybe we should think of it this way: "Boundaries and limitations" suggest that their is a range of timbers and that timber is only realized when the instrument is played. Therefore, musician+instrument= timber. And since ‘musician’ is a variable...well, you get the point.

I think the subject of timbre/tone, personal or otherwise, deserves a more-in-depth discussion. Vertigo, I have recovered (somewhat), so I will give it a shot :-)

The term "timbre" is often used to describe the sound of a particular type or family of instruments- "the timbre of a saxophone vs. that of a piano" for example. The term "tone" is often used to describe something more personal, like the sound that a particular player produces- "Chet Baker's tone" for example. But, the fact is that the two terms are synonymous. They both describe the characteristic sound produced by an instrument, voice, or anything else capable of producing a sound. The two terms are interchangeable.

As Learsfool pointed out, and Atmasphere corroborated, there is such a thing as a "personal timbre". This is a very real phenomenon, and one that players on every instrument deals with. It is important to consider that there are several things that contribute to the final sound produced by a player/instrument, and the relationships between these is complex and don't lend themselves to "black/white" explanations; there is a lot of gray. 

First let's consider the instrument. Each individual instrument has a built-in "timbre". There are "brand" similarities, but within brands there are differences among individual samples. For instance, Yamaha saxophones are, as a rule, brighter and less complex sounding than Selmer saxophones (although they have other traits that are advantageous). Similar tone distinctions can be made of just about any brand of instrument. There is a built-in "leaning" towards a particular sound signature within each brand. Of course, there are many exceptions having to do with the vintage of a particular instrument, but that's a different discussion. 

Likewise, every player has a built-in "personal timbre". This has nothing to do with playing style, although the two intertwine (gray). The incredulous (Vertigo) will say "How is this possible?". Think of the explanation in audio terms: Why does a turntable sound different when placed on a maple platform than it does placed on granite? Taken a step further: Why does granite give ALL turntables placed on it (regardless of brand) an identifiable sonic quality vs. that of maple? The answer is that the platform becomes an extension of the turntable, and maple and granite each have distinct resonance characteristics. Likewise, the musician's body with it's unique shape, weight, and size of vocal cavity, chest, and fingers become an extension of the instrument. A good player can control the sound produced by any instrument to better suit his/her style, but not completely. There will always be a limitation to how much control over the sound there will be because of the built-in sound of the instrument and the player's "personal timbre". This is not necessarily a liability, but a potential asset in artistic expression. It is true that the stronger the musician's musical personality is, the more he can overcome a particular instrument's propensity  for a certain sound; that is, if the musician wants to.

Atmasphere was surprised at how different one of his flutes sounds when someone else plays it. Consider this: among wind players it is a well known phenomenon that if a player loans his instrument for any length of time to a player with a drastically different approach to tone production, the instrument will feel very different to it's owner afterwards, and will need some time to settle back to it's familiar feel.

I think the parallels to things audio are many and obvious. There are many things about music's production and reproduction that we simply don't fully understand. Personally, I think that's part of the beauty and magic of it all.

Learsfool...

Thank you very much for the book recommendation! I will seek it out at my local library. It sounds very interesting. Either way, I have enjoyed/am enjoying our discussion. RE ***I sincerely wish you joy in your listening. *** thank you. The same to you.

Atmasphere, Hi! The correct context of that question is this...Can the way a person PLAYS an instrument change that instrumentsTIMBRE? My answer to that would be an unequivocal ...No! Here's why...The materials and how they are executed in that instrument set the boundaries and limitations of the variable ways it can potentially sound but no player can ever play outside of those boundaries. I understand the concept that different musician's have different styles that wasn't the problem i had, the problem i have is if someone claims "musicianship can alter an acoustic instruments timbre"! One might think it sounds like (emphasis on "like") a different instrument but the reality is...it is the same instrument and therefore the same timbre of that instrument. What you are hearing when it sounds different is a new variable within that instruments limitations compared to your previous understanding of those boundaries but nevertheless that potential was always available just not realized. So, the truth is...the musician is the source of the change and not the instruments timbre. In other words musicians change but not the timbre of that instrument.If players could make a harmonica sound like a piano, or a trumpet sound like a tuba because of their playing style then i would reject what i just said as being untrue. But, yes, i know what you are saying...its LIKE its a different instrument!

Hi Lacee...

RE***I have a decent stereo, in fact I've had several cutting edge systems since the mid 80's,and I have a friend with a system that is not just as expensive as a couple of new homes, but also sounds very realitsic,but the owner ,an avid concert goer, says that even this is nothing close to what he hears in a live event.***

Because i have never heard that system i really can't comment on how good it sounds or doesn't sound. It would be very telling... to play back "sittin' on top of the world" Bob dylan good as i been to you LP (often used as my reference for Hohner marine band harmonica timbre) on his system, then i could comment on how it compares to my playback of the same song in my rig. First i would like to say, that i would love the opportunity to be able to experiment with a scarletti cd player! and that for me too...this is way out of my budget. The other thing that came to mind as i read your post was it has been my experience and you will probably agree, that there isn't always a direct correlation between big buck rigs and stellar hi fidelity. I also don't equate expensive rig owners with people who have heard everything that is possible from hifi. (re read that last statement) This is often a mistake made in audiophile circles. So, while i have argued in the past that the state of the art of hifi systems today is not what it was 5 years ago (and expensive is kinda the way you need to go), i want to qualify that statement by saying there is another factor/other factors that i believe to be equally or more important and that factor is... synergy. The third factor...(the hifi trinity for stereo system building? (haha) is...being a discerning listener.

The interesting thing about synergy is nobody in all of hifidom can guarantee you where you will find it! WE! have to find it ourselves. Synergy is "dollar signs blind" (if you will) Finding synergy takes alot of work. Well, i should say, finding the LEVEL of synergy so as to make your stereo playback of a Hohner marine band harmonica sound absolutely real will take alot of work. It's not turn key at all and the bad news is...you might spend years trying to dial in, nail, timbres so they are spot on. You might never find it even. Or someone out there might get lucky and have just the right mix of cables and components in a short amount of time. What am i saying? I'm saying that if you are trying to say that the timbre playback of my marine band harmonica can't sound real because your friend has a rig expensive as houses and his doesn't sound real then therefore neither can mine...then i would have to disagree with you for the above named reasons. Since there are other contingencies that account for good or bad playback. If i read between the lines wrong , i apologize in advance.

I once heard a rig that, new, would have retailed for between 200 and 300 thousand dollars. I feel like my rig of about 20,000 used sounds better? Go figure. I want to qualify that i am not saying my system is perfect, or that it always sounds real. I am not saying it can reproduce perfectly the dynamics of every instrument out there flawlessy every single time. I am not saying my system plays below 25hz. I am not saying my system can produce the perfect timbre of a vocal passage, piano and stand up bass all at the same time, all the time and with every recording. Just the opposite. What i am saying is there are certain tracks, of certain instruments, of certain vocals, of a certain type of recording where something stunning happens and it mimics a real vocal or a real harmonica. I can't say i have ever heard my system reproduce the timbre of a piano to where i cannot distinguish it from real. Same goes for stand up bass, loud drum sets, violin, and a plethora of other instruments. What i am saying is...if all attributes of an instruments timbre are faithfully reproduced and are present and present all at the same time then it sounds real. I'm saying the potential is out there and that its possible but only with the conditions i've mentioned above.

If and when my system sounds real its usually vocals, harmonicas and brass instruments.(if the recording is "right" and on a few recordings)

This to me is farther then i've ever progressed and i would say i am working on trying to get ALL facets to be right on a consistent basis. I'll try but without consistently better recording methods i am skeptical as to the degree to which i will succeed. Direct to disc live recordings hold alot of promise, i think but unfortunately alot of past music wasn't recorded that way. It's not a big deal to me really, as i said before, live, recorded its not that big a deal to me. As long as i get a kick out of trying to make it sound real then i'll keep going and i can enjoy poorly played back songs too.

Atmasphere,

I don’t know if 'personal timbre’ is the right word either, I always call it ‘tone’. But you’re so right. To me, it’s a quality that is most conspicuous among trumpet players. From Harry, Louis, and Al to Miles, Chet and Freddie, each achieved a very unique and easily identifiable tone; and I believe that, even taking into account that they weren’t playing the exact same trumpet.

I sincerely don't get you when you say...

"My personal timbre (again, this is a separate thing from style) will come through, no matter which instrument I am playing on, despite the difference in the timbres of each individual horn. " ????

I can answer this one- I am often amazed how different one of my flutes sounds when someone else plays it- its like its a different instrument! IOW 'personal timbre' is maybe not the best expression but it is very real and easy to hear!

Hi Vertigo - like Frogman, I am dumbfounded by your posts. Either you have not been serious this entire time, and this has been one giant troll; or, if you are truly serious, I throw up my hands in despair. If you really are curious for more info on musical terms, I suggest to you a truly great book called "How To Listen To Music", by the famous American composer Aaron Copland, widely available. I have recommended it many times on this site, and it has helped a great many music lovers and audiophiles learn much more about music and gain much greater enjoyment out of listening to it (not just classical music, by the way, but any style you listen to). I hope you check it out, and I sincerely wish you joy in your listening.

I've been in recording studios and made a few recordings with local bands,and some local airplay on a PBS blues station.

I have a decent stereo, in fact I've had several cutting edge systems since the mid 80's,and I have a friend with a system that is not just as expensive as a couple of new homes, but also sounds very realitsic,but the owner ,an avid concert goer, says that even this is nothing close to what he hears in a live event.But he hasn't given up on his quest to further improve his sound.But he isn't fooled.
I stopped trying to keep up with him.
The advancements he's made are too expensive for me to indulge in, so I'll leave it up to him fight the good fight.

I've listened to this system evolve over the years, and even his full blown Scarlatti digital set up and his SME 30/12 fails to make a recording of a Marine Band harmonica become anything more real than what it is, a recording of a harmonica.

Any recording of a harmonica and the system playing it back adds and subtracts so much information from the original, that,the better the system the more you can distinguish, live from reproduced. Or so you should.

This is perhaps what you find so troubling, that the closer you get to reality, the more you can hear that the reality you are hearing is indeed a reproduction.

For example the less resolution a photo has of the real painting of Mona Lisa the more the two will resemble each other and be harder to tell what is real and what is the reproduction.

As it is in audio, the more resolution of the system, the more you hear into the recording, the venue and all the other things that make it so much different than what you would hear in your own home , and you can use any instrument you may have at your disposal.

I've heard some high res downloads at my well healed friend's(yes he's big into this now)and the results are very good on some material.

I could easily hear that Neil Young was playing a harmonica on the Massey hall cuts,just like I could tell that Perry Mason was played by Raymond Burr back in the 50's. on my parent's first TV.
The fact that I could tell it was a harmonica and not a trumpet would be quite apparant on any system.
Now was it a Marine band? Perhaps.
I know it wasn't a Lee Oscar, they weren't available of course.

But was that harmonica right there in the room with me?Did it sound just the same as it would if my friend played one of his harmonicas?
No it sounded like the harmonica that Neil Young played that night in Massey hall as recorded by his tape deck and played back thru a hifi system.
Even with hundreds of thousands of dollars in a well set up room with all the bells and whistles of exotic power cords and wires and conditioning, it wasn't real, and neither of us were buying that it was.But we enjoyed it, even more as we discovered hidden details that made it perfecrtly clear that this was a recording.

Now here's a few examples of how people were fooled in the past.
The old live vs recording contests done back in the 1950s.
AR speakers I believe ,they had a great many people convinced that what was actually recorded music was real live performers.The gear was pretty primitive compared to todays reproducers as far as accuracy goes.
Also remember the adds for cassette tape from TDK, the sound was so real, it would blow you right out of the chair.
Again, no where near the resolution of todays gear, and yet the folks were fooled, or so the ads would lead us to believe.
Just a couple of examples of how low resolution can fool us into believing it's the real thing.
I am saying that high res systems do the opposite.
They expose the details that distinguish between a live musical event and a recorded one, and that makes it easier to tell the differences.

Now some folks prefer to be fooled.
Some folks find it more pleasing to the ear to listen to systems that are not revealing,they want the music to have soul,they want it warm and romantic,they find systems that reveal the music warts and all to be too sterile and find it fatiguing.
In other words they prefer to listen to music without all the added information and find systems to match their preference.
These people mostly prefer vintage gear, because it is not as resolving of all the inner detail that the better new gear is capable of.

No one is or should be tied down to either preference.
One is true to the source, one is not.One is true to the heart, the other true to the ear.
You choose what speaks to you

Now back to my listening session with the high end goodies.
You could hear the faint echo of the hall, the sound of the harmonic in it, the sound of the faint tape hiss on his stage tape recorder.
All that was there in the hall to hear was there in his system, and yet it still wasn't real.
It wasn't as imediate as the sound of a harp played back in his living room.There were differences, and many of them.There were a lot of clues that revealed this is a recording, it's not real.
The same as there are a lot of clues when you listen to an unrecorded instrument,or the lack of such clues would be a better way to put it.A lack of the effects of the recording process that are absent live which are there when recorded and played back on a hifi rig.
A resolving system doesn't blur the lines between live and real,it only puts them into sharper contrast.

However, what we heard was the sound of his harmonica of whatever make, being reproduced by a microphone, perhaps Shure 57 or 58, and all the cabling into the tape recorder.I was perhaps more there at the venue than he was there at my friends.
Which was pretty good considering the time of the recording and how it was recorded
So let's forget about all the electronic circuits adding and subtracting from the "real" sound of a harmonica,let's focus on what the engineer and old Neil himself felt about the sound of those raw tapes.
Should we add some more reverb and make the sound of the venue more pronounced, should we take some away,and make his harp sound larger that it is in real life?

Probably added a little of this, take away a little of that, and there you have it, their take on what the Marine Band harmonica as played by Neil Young should sound like.

So we really don't have a pure sound of what that harp sounds like do we.It's sound has been altered , the whole recording process alters it, the hall altered it, and my stereo, my friend's stereo, and even your stereo is altering and distorting it even more from reality.

So I am not doubting that to you thru your system,you can hear no difference between a recording of a Marine Band harp and your own live playing of it.
You 've stated that you do, in fine fashion I should add.

All I am saying is that I can't say the same about any of the systems that I am familiar with or have ever been familiar with.

I have never in my experience, ever been fooled by a recording thinking that it was a real event.
Perhaps it's knowing what goes on behind the scenes that skews my perception, but I also trust my ears, and so far, live is live and reproduced is reproduced.I can hear the studio trickery, and gimmicks that aren't there in real life.

And the better resolving the system,the easier it is for me to tell the difference between live and recorded.

This is the paradox.The more we seek reality and higher resolution, the less we are fooled into believing that what we hear is real.
It's the dirty little secret some folks don't want you to know.

Frogman...

RE i feel dizzy.

me too! ...and sometimes i wouldn't have it any other way!

Sometimes reality has too many heads.

Sometimes to get your bearings you need to let go of all points of reference if you want to "arrive"?

(friendly smile)

*

Lacee...

This is good...

"This makes more sense,have someone blow a trumpet in your room, full tilt.

Did you cover your ears?
I am saying you would, the sound of the trumpet all on it's lonesome will blow you out of the room.

Now play any trumpet recordings you have, Miles, Mangione, Terry,does the recording overload the room?

Not like the sound of the real thing is it?
You can get loud and distorted and use a couple thousand watts, you can get the volume levels loud enough, but,does it sound anything like the real thing?"

I need to think about this...and i would like to respond.

If and when i find time....(other priorities exist)

I'd like to do this question justice...

(The question hasn't fallen by the wayside...not yet)

I know what you're getting at and i think it valuable to address this question.

Vertigo, I feel dizzy. More to follow; I need time to recuperate.

Hi Lacee,

RE***does Clapton buy a brand new fresh from the factory guitar everytime he records?***

Cut and paste where i did say ...or imply , that he did or would? You missed my point and you missed the context.

Let me try and add some clarity.

When i said (paraphrasing) "musicians will change their strings/use new harmonicas and not go into studio with tired old strings/harmonica's"...to reiterate the point...

I only said this as a RESPONSE to one of your previous statements which was an attempt to "discredit" my "reference" for measuring the quality of my stereo playback. ie, a live marine band harmonica.

In other words basicly you were saying that i can't know if my marine band harmonica has the same timbre as bob's because his might have 10,000 hrs on it (spit, oxidation, metal fatigue etc etc) and mine might have only 200 hrs and you are saying (or a host of other contingencies)...THEREFORE... your contention is that the playback and live harmonica comparison is invalidated and therefore not admissible!

And hence my response...

Which was to say that bob would not go into recording with a harmonica with 10,000 hrs on it! Generally speaking ...and maybe its even standard procedure for electric guitarists, acoustic guitarists and harmonica players to not use dirty oxidized metal parts which are crucial to the integrity of their sound. Most electric guitarists have a schedule based upon how much they play as to when its time to restring. Is this not true? do i really have to waste this much energy to defend this? (smile)

Why do you have to ask me if clapton buy's a new guitar each time he goes into studio? I don't see how or where your logic could follow from my initial statements for you to make such a silly statement.?

So with that said...i say... that my comparison need not be "thrown out". That is too extreme and goes too far!

Ever watch dylans rock movie "don't look back".? There is a scene where dylan is frustrated by the fact that he is minutes from going on stage but has to go up there with "tired harmonicas" he says...(after his buddy attempted to revive it by soaking it in water)(bob blows into it to re check it)

and says...

"it's passable, i'll use it (sounding irritated) its just a drag i dont have a new one"

Also...When i was talking "trumpets and harmonicas" i'm not sure if you got it or not but i was trying to "demolish" your argument by another form of argument called... "reducing it to the absurd"

You said i was (i'm going to paraphrase).... "incorrect... the timbre of a harmonica can be effected by the room" (if you kindly will, in the future , to facilitate the discussion, please only use the word timbre not tone when discussing instruments, since i claim the timbres of my harmonica and my stereo playback are indistinguishable)(timbre is more ideal to hifi discussions)

RE "incorrect... the timbre of a harmonica can be effected by the room" (which is to essentially say therefore again its faulty or inadmissible proof)

In response i would say that i have to disagree with you.

The harmonica's TIMBRE will not change as a consequence of whether the room is "dead, live, or in the middle". These effects will only affect WHAT IS A CAPTURED BY THE MIC (degrees of liveliness or deadness), it can not make the timbre of a hohner marine band harmonica sound like the timbre of a trumpet, can it? No, it cannot. Or would you like to argue that it can? Therefore...

Since it cannot, and since both my room and the ambience of the room that i perceive on the record are negligable (no hall reverb) to compare my live hohner to the hohner in the playback i submit is a high quality test by which to measure the degree to which my system can play back the TIMBRE of a hohner harmonica and should not be rejected on a claim that room changes an instruments timbre and especially to THE DEGREE to which you seem to imply it can!

So, my statement saying that the room effects are negligible are justified. (maybe the correct thing to say is it has NO effect! on an instruments timbre) A live room recorded down to the track at best might only obscure my ability / make it more of a challenge... to hear "past" the recording to the instruments timbre, as i judge its merits but it does not obliterate its timbre at all. These are two mutually exclusive things.

True...bob's harmonica might have 15 hrs and mine might have 100 , true...i cant know if the "liveliness" of my room compared with the recording room was within tolerances of less than 0.005-25 percent, true...the mic's directional p/u might be different from me playing it in my own mouth, true...no, i dont know which speakers it was mixed with , true i don't know which brand mic he used, true...i don't know how good the quality of their recording gear was...etc etc, on and on you can go...

but the point is...

1.I do have a live hohner harmonica!
2.I do have a stereo sound to judge and compare
3.All the rest is irrelevant!

The key is...Points 1-3 !!! read again.

EVERYTHING else...in the final analysis i will leave up to you to analyze (humpty dumpty or not), i like to keep it simple.

I play my hi end stereo composed of extremely fine parts, I play the recording of the harmonica track, i play the same brand live at home and ask....

How identical do they sound? I constantly compare them and continue to compare and build my system around how close i am getting to that goal.

Why does it sound real when it shouldn't according to you? I don't know, you tell me?

I suspect you are either less exposed to REALLY good sounding system's and what is both possible both from a recording perspective to pass on to a playback chain and naturally the scope of your belief is narrower as to what is possible.

Certain parameters of my system at moments mimic reality, mimic timbres and voices (here i just have to give another plug for the allaerts cart, its a cartridge of a different "order" "kind" from all the rest (at least the ones i've heard, it just performs a miracle?)

It's like all the other cartridges are "numbers" when it comes to timbre, but this cart is a "letter" its "doing something "other"" by contrast to them and to try and explain that is ineffable.

So, i give up!

I still can't believe that one person in india can talk to another person in australia without a wire? Well, i believe it but its just amazing!

I have been as narrow as to say in the past, reproduced music will never sound like live but i am more open to that possibility today than ever. Old poor recordings don't stand a chance but new recordings, with better technology, with more attention paid to how they will sound on new modern systems, for the future stand a chance.

RE the weight of real instruments compared to stereo playback weight of real instruments.

If i were to blind fold you and put headphones on ...that could overcome the sound from a real instrument in the room and you had to raise you arm whenever the instrument was played by feeling it on your body but not knowing if and when it played , how well could you do that? and for which instrument? Could you identify the instrument from a plethora of others? which ones do you think you could pick out? or not pick out based on the experiment described? If your life depended on it could you?

How does a lone harmonica feel? trumpet? kick drum? cymbal? violin? Now change the distance between the instrument and you...now can you do it? How much pleasure do you derive from music from this one parameter to the exclusion of the others? then how important does it make it in the big picture of reproduction? (i'm not assuming the answers)

I do feel i understand where you are coming from and i do think instruments weights can and are mimicked by systems to a higher degree than you seem to. It's one important parameter to address but i don't think systems are as bad as you think they are in this area and i think its an important area but i think timbres and matching db's to how the event was recorded is to be more fair to our systems when we judge them. We form conclusion at least to some degree, maybe alot...on unfair comparisons.

If i want to compare a trumpet or nirvana's "nevermind" it is important to crank it as loud as if nirvana were playing live BEFORE I judge. They probably play at between 95-100 db, if i did play my system back this loud i am one parameter, one step closer to imitating them and one step closer to being "fair to my system"!...next would be to close my eyes at both events(this is only rarely possible)...that would be another step closer to being "fair"...what about this..and that...How many other ways do we fail to recognize how unfair we are to our systems? How often do these parameters get overlooked? How often have people concluded it doesn't sound live but don't think to consider they are playing at only 73db? Lots....Lots.

System's today with quality recordings can mimic certain parameters of the live event and they will only get better!

If you never heard "better" you will naturally remain skeptical and maintain your position.

Hearing is believing.

.

Learsfool,

You say "Say 10 professional musicians who are very proficient pick up the exact same harmonica and play the same simple folk tune on it (no question of different styles coming into it) - you should be able to identify basic differences in each of their individual timbres that they produce on that same harmonica, even playing exactly the same thing. I do not of course suggest that you should be able to then identify each separate person again in separate hearing, this type of what some might call "critical" listening needs much training, but you should be able to tell the basic difference when a different person picks up that same harmonica.

To give another example - if I play the exact same thing on ten different horns, you should still be able to tell that it is me playing all ten of them, even if I chose the ten most different sounding models I could. My personal timbre (again, this is a separate thing from style) will come through, no matter which instrument I am playing on, despite the difference in the timbres of each individual horn. "

I sincerely don't get you when you say...

"My personal timbre (again, this is a separate thing from style) will come through, no matter which instrument I am playing on, despite the difference in the timbres of each individual horn. " ????

Can you elaborate on this by defining the terms you use and therefore show me how they are different, since , to my knowledge and understanding of these terms you are blurring their definitions, one over the other and "making distinctions without a difference"

That is...i don't see how "personal playing style" and "personal timbre" are two mutually exclusive things, which according to your statement above you obviously say they are not the same thing. You even speak of a third category which is the timbre of instruments.

So with that said how would you define:

1.Personal timbre
2.A persons playing style
3.Timbre(for instruments)

For me..."timbre" as i have used it in this example... to say that... (paraphrasing) "dylans recorded harmonica(played back through my stereo) and mine( played live)" (as a reference by which i measure the quality of my stereo)... sound identical! is me essentially saying...the quality of my stereo playback is of such a kind of quality as to render the timbres of these identical brands indistinguishable. This excites me because my system is able to reproduce the timbre of a hohner marine band harmonica. And ...i say it is a acceptable test because my comparison is between two identical brand instruments.

For me...a musicians style is one thing and instrumental timbres another.

I will give my definition of timbre again(as i have learned it in audiophile circles and in my own words):

How the materials, their execution in the design of the instrument... excite air.

So, for example a harmonica with a plastic comb will sound different from a harmonica with a real wood comb.

Or...

A guitar with a real spruce top and sides, bonded together with hot hide glue and real bone nut will have a different timbre from a synthetic guitar, with epoxy glue and plastic nut.

So, timbre is an objective thing. It is not relative. How the two above guitars differ in their sonic signature is the differences between their TIMBRES. So, an astute ear can measure his sound system's reproduction of the above instruments and say on a sliding scale whether or not a systems timbre reproduction is way off, pretty ok, very good, excellent, superb or astonishing.

Thats what i do and naturally, a good test is the sound of a live marine band harmonica with a recorded marine band harmonica.

I define a acoustic "musicians style" as :

How the musician creates emotional articulation by technique. ie, how hard/soft/fast/slow/which notes he hits , their arrangement, whether he bends, them or not, how he moves the instrument around, etc, etc

None of these personal playing style EFFECTS... AFFECTS! the objective timbre of an instrument!

I have no definition for "personal timbre" that is distinguishable from "personal playing style."

I think the problem has been that we have two different definitions of timbre in our minds or someone has a misunderstanding of what timbre is.

For example i cant understand how you could ever say this statement:

"I play in a band with a blues harp player.He has several harps, and plays in several scales, and he has several blowing techniques.
Not once have I ever thought that his harp(even a cheap Marine band) sounded anything remotely like Dylans."

???

I was trying to say my live marine band harmonicas timbre is identical to bob's marine band harmonica and you replied with the above statement. But i wasn't talking about style...i was talking about the timbre of a marine band harmonica!, which is an objective thing APART from style!. So, if the playback and live of the same instrument sound identical then my system is achieving my desired goal! What's the problem? Isn't that good? It obviously IS a good thing! and a GOOD test to use to measure progress.

RE***Not once have I ever thought that his harp(even a cheap Marine band) sounded anything remotely like Dylans."***

Why because your bandmate has a different playing style? Even if he does have a different playing style, can his playing style change the timbre of his marine band harmonica into a lee oskar harmonica? If not...then why didn't his marine band harmonica sound like a marine band harmonica when he was USING one?

.

One last kick at the can.

I'll bring out old Humpty Dumpty and try to use him to better convey my thoughts about this topic.

Well after he gave his best rendition of Blowin in the Wind, he toppled off the wall and fell into a bunch of pieces.

The techies of the day patched him back up as best they could,and to most folks, yes he looks as good as new.You recognize him as Humpty Dumpty.
Until you take a closer look and see that, he is no longer a whole entity, but is now a patchwork of his former self.

Now I would like to address another issue, and bring up quality control.

Are todays Marine Band harmonics the same, better or worse than the one Mr Zimmerman was using back in the day?
A lot of folks would say that most modern gear isn't.
Pre CBS has a lot of cache when it comes to guitars and amps.
Also,how close to spec does one Marine band measure to the next?
I'll bet that no two are alike,and that the way that they are played and how often will also affect the sound, including the timbre.So no two harps will sound the same even if they did sound the same when manufactured.Different blowing habits and extended use will alter the sound or timbre if you must.
I've known guys who can blow the reeds out of their harps.
And some prefer the build of spittle sound to one's that are cleaned.

Each muscian knows the sound he is going after,that some musicians don't bother with highend audio,is because they know it just doesn't sound as real as when they are playing.Which is a shame.

I remember seeing Buddy Rich abruptly halt a performance of Norwegian Wood because he didn't like the sound of a particular cymbal, and threw it to the ground and stomped on it.
This was down the road from the Zildgian plant so I think there was just a bit of showmanship antics involved.
Yet a visit to the same plant by my drummer back then(quite the treat and not open to everyone)disclosed the fact that there are different quality levels of Zildgian cymbals and that the ones that end up at your local music store are not the cream of the crop,which is not to say they are no good, they just are not the same quality as the ones that the "name" A list players have at their disposal.

The good players fortunate enough to buy direct and cherry pick their cymbals can hear the difference.
Most in a live audience would just be able to distinguish that yes indeed he hit the crash and it sounds different than the ride.
At home on their rigs ,maybe they might be able to tell the difference,but could they tell the difference between an A cymbal and one bought at a store that is not grade A?

I seriously doubt they could even at a live event.
They would recognize the timbre of the cymbal but not be able to differentaite much beyond that.

Even less chance of distinguishing a quality cymbal from a cheap one thru most hifi systems, and I would go further and have to say,all systems.

Once Humpty has been broken up, no amount of repair can ever re-create the original.

Vertigo, I used the harmonica only because that seems to be what you are most familiar with.

I also said that you could substitute a trumpet for example.

This makes more sense,have someone blow a trumpet in your room, full tilt.

Did you cover your ears?
I am saying you would, the sound of the trumpet all on it's lonesome will blow you out of the room.

Now play any trumpet recordings you have, Miles, Mangione, Terry,does the recording overload the room?

Not like the sound of the real thing is it?
You can get loud and distorted and use a couple thousand watts, you can get the volume levels loud enough, but,does it sound anything like the real thing?

I know it won't, just like I know that the sound of the harp player in my band can alter the sound of his Marine band harp just by using different types of microphones, and if he runs it thru the PA or thru amp and then into the PA, like everything ,the more you mess with something the less "real" it is, and the further away from what the real thing is.He can make his Marine band sound completely different.It's just a marine band,like yours and Dylans, but you would not recognize it as such.

Recordings are not real.
Dylan's harp doesn't sound like your marine band.
Neither does John Mayals( I saw him live in concert last nite).

It has been altered in the recording process ,so it sounds the way the engineer wants it to sound, and how your equipment and room want it to sound.Dylans harp was mastered and mixed probably on big old studio JBL, or Altecs or whatever the engineer had.
You would have to have the exact same playback chain as the engineer to even have any clue of the sound of Dylan's harp at the time of the recording.
Which is saying that the sound of his recorded harp was as real as the best recording gear of the day could achieve and how the engineer felt it should sound,when listened to thru his refernce monitors.
So how can you say that your harp sounds exactly the same as Dylan's?
Nothing is the same anywhere in the chain.

You are only hearing a partial reproduction of the real sound.Sorry there is no absolute sound.
At least not in the context of listening to recordings.

A four inch cone can only move so much air , yet a Roger's LS3/5a can sound pretty good even when asked to play back a large symphony.
But the scale is ,obviously, nothing like the real thing.
Yet many people are quite pleased with the reproduced sound that the Rogers is capable of even on this demanding music.

Speakers compress the information, the impact, but they do enough things right to please us even with all their limitations.
The speakers have been and continue to be the weakest link, the biggest road block to recreating the real live performance in the room.

Strings--,ok, go find a jazz bassist, who plays an upright and ask him if he changes his strings when he does any recordings.

Strings especially bass strings all loose some of their life at different stages.They don't all go flat or dead the same.New bass strings usually are a bit on the brite and jangly side, but some electric players like this type of Guitar type snap and clarity.

So when the strings break in and they are all playing together , one not any brighter or less brite than the other, then things are fine, no need to change for a recording.Changing strings for a recording is a personal thing.Some would, some wouldn't.

I've seen some groups where the electric guitar player has several different guitars ,each voiced for a specific tone he is trying to get.
The very adept guitarist, Rocky from Mayall's band used one Gibson Les Paul, and got all the tone anyone would ever desire,using it's tone controls, foot pedals and his own technique to great effect.

Put Rocky or Clapton in your listening room and have them play some riffs that have also been recorded, and it should be obvious that the difference is nite and day.

Or put Jay Davenport in your room and let him pound out a beat,there again the difference between a real set of drums and the reproduced sound of the drums would be huge.

The point of all this is that the more complex the music the harder it is to accurately reproduce.Quite simple, but the same can be said for simple things like harmonicas and even acoustic guitar.

The differences are there none the less,a microphone, electronic recording gear and playback gear can only reproduce a fraction of the live sound.

There is a lot missing,stuff that can't be measured, and it's not just volume.

With enough watts and large speakers I'll bet I could flap your trousers with a recording of Bob's harmonica.
But is that real?

Hi Vertigo - I'm sorry, but you are again misrepresenting my argument. When you say "In order to have meaningful dialog you guys will need to understand the distinction between playing STYLES and the timbre of a hohner marine band harmonica", along with some of your other examples, I can only conclude that you are talking (and listening) in a much more general way than I and Lacee. I have been speaking of timbre throughout this whole discussion - I am certainly not confusing it with musical style! Yes, the same harmonica will be recognizable as a harmonica, no matter who is playing it, of course, in a general sense. What I have been trying to get through to you about timbre is much more specific than that.

Say 10 professional musicians who are very proficient pick up the exact same harmonica and play the same simple folk tune on it (no question of different styles coming into it) - you should be able to identify basic differences in each of their individual timbres that they produce on that same harmonica, even playing exactly the same thing. I do not of course suggest that you should be able to then identify each separate person again in separate hearing, this type of what some might call "critical" listening needs much training, but you should be able to tell the basic difference when a different person picks up that same harmonica.

To give another example - if I play the exact same thing on ten different horns, you should still be able to tell that it is me playing all ten of them, even if I chose the ten most different sounding models I could. My personal timbre (again, this is a separate thing from style) will come through, no matter which instrument I am playing on, despite the difference in the timbres of each individual horn.

Perhaps you feel that these differences are insignificant. If so, all I can say is that most serious listeners/music lovers/audiophiles would not agree. Certainly no musician would.

RE***Vertigo wrote: "a harmonica is an instrument that pushes very little air and since it pushes very little air, how it interfaces with the room is probably negligable."

This is incorrect. As any musician will tell you, every room has a very significant effect on your tone, no matter what the instrument.****

OK, I stand corrected. The harmonica pushes a ton of air so much so it excites the room to such a degree that its TIMBRES will become unrecognizable/totally different from room to room!

RE***One thing that needs to be added here, assuming that you are playing the harmonica, is that the sound you hear will be quite a bit different from the sound anyone else in the same room is hearing, for the simple reason that you, as the player of the harmonica, are also hearing the sound INSIDE your head. Again, this is by no means insignificant.****

Absolutely, they are not even going to be close! Totally absolutely different! I provided a poor argument and example! To some the harmonica might sound like a trumpet!

Sorry, The marine band harmonica i play and the marine band harmonica my friend plays from 5 feet away in regards to its inherent TIMBRE are identical.

RE***But it's an individual thing,does Clapton buy a brand new fresh from the factory guitar everytime he records?***

I have no idea what this statement has to do with musicians who generally not wanting to use tired, oxidized strings when they go into a recording studio have them changed or what it has to do with my original point in this regard? You are setting up a straw man argument... unintentionally or on purpose i don't know?

RE***I play in a band with a blues harp player.He has several harps, and plays in several scales, and he has several blowing techniques.
Not once have I ever thought that his harp(even a cheap Marine band) sounded anything remotely like Dylans.***

This is totally irrelevant. Since I did NOT SAY.... My harmonica ...PLAYING... is like dylan's! If the harp player in your band uses hohner marine band harmonica's.... it unequivocally should sound identical to mine of the same brand and dylan's of the same brand in regard to its ...TIMBRE!

Line up a thousand different people and have each of them blow this brand harmonica and a thousand times it's timbre is identical,not once does it change... therefore I DO have a reference for judging the timbre of bob's harmonica emanating from my speakers. You can try and escape that all you want but its not going to happen. (smile)

In order to have meaningful dialog you guys will need to understand the distinction between playing STYLES and the timbre of a hohner marine band harmonica.

The second distinction is that whether a honer marine band harmonica is played by myself or by someone 5 feet away...playing ...TO me...does not change an instruments TIMBRE, either.

Therefore, in this regard i again put forward that a hohner marine band harmonica of which, bob dylan on many occasion's prefers to use and my and my friend's marine band harmonica, standing 5 feet away and the sound emanating from my speakers has inherently the same sonic envelope , ie , Timbre, with slight allowances (which i have already CLEARLY granted)... for direction, distance,micing, room (if any at all). None of the latter allowances can change the hohner marine band harmonica's inherent timbre.

RE***Have someone stand in front of you when you blow your harmonica(Or horn or any live instrument)and ask them if they feel the air striking their face.The sonic impact, the pressure, the visceral whole body experience.

Then play a similar recording of Dylan and ask them if they physically feel any of the above.

The differences between live and recorded are still vast.***

Not in my world. My shirt never flutters from an instrument playing in front of me unless its a big drum or something. I have heard speakers that are lean and light and therefore lack "weight" but a speaker and system that produces believable weight is one of many important , contributing factors that cast the spell of the sense of hearing a live instrument. My harmonica reproduction has that real life weight.

If they only involve a few of their senses. As stated the impact of a symphony at full blast, exactly recreated in a listening room isn't going to happen is it?
Then why say that it did?

Especially through small mini monitors!!!!

Two things to clarify.

New strings or a new harp are not mandatory when recording.
Certain things develope a "sound" when they've been played awhile(like components-that's another days argument).

But it's an individual thing,does Clapton buy a brand new fresh from the factory guitar everytime he records?
Does a jazz bassist buy new strings everytime he records?
Not if he is looking for that "mellow" or familiar tone sound.

I play in a band with a blues harp player.He has several harps, and plays in several scales, and he has several blowing techniques.
Not once have I ever thought that his harp(even a cheap Marine band) sounded anything remotely like Dylans.

We can recognize a harmonica for what it is, and we can recognize the sound and differentiate one instrument from another,,most of our systems are quite good at this.

But there are so many subtleties involved in reproducing music that are missing when we sit down to listen.

My point is that we shouldn't be dillusional and think that we have arrived at the greatest level of resolution.
Because if we did arrive there then all the differences between your playing of a harmonica and Dylan,would be more than obvious, no matter where either of you fall on a scale of great harp players.

Playing exactly the same notes in the same fashion and even thru the same tape recorder in the same studio,you should still be different, and a great sound system should be able to reveal the difference.If you both sound the same, then something is wrong in the chain.

This is one of the problems I have with a recording system that eventhough it sounds great, it substitutes bits of the music with repeated bits of what it thinks is good enough to fill in the spaces.
Upsampling is great, I've heard some ripped cds that sound better than the original cd did.The system was reveling enough to show the difference.

Yet digital recording puts a ceiling on the high frequencies and in so doing a great deal of musical information is MIA.

Analog rolls off the lower freqencies so that bass notes won't jolt the tone arm off the record,and it too relies on RIAA standards.

Neither system is without it's flaws,all systems are flawed, and nothing today sounds like the real thing.

There is too much missing information and a lot of important musical overtones and harmonics ,present in real life, are not in any recording that was designed to limit what it is recording.

Here's about the simplest example I can give.

Have someone stand in front of you when you blow your harmonica(Or horn or any live instrument)and ask them if they feel the air striking their face.The sonic impact, the pressure, the visceral whole body experience.

Then play a similar recording of Dylan and ask them if they physically feel any of the above.

The differences between live and recorded are still vast.
However improvemnts have made the listening to reproduced music much more enjoyable that it used to be, and some exotic systems can fool some folks into thinking that the musicians were right in the room.If they only ivolve a few of their senses. As stated the impact of a symphony at full blast, exactly recreated in a listening room isn't going to happen is it?
Then why say that it did?

Especially thru small mini monitors.

Well I would partly agree that the listener felt a sense of the recorded venue and a sense of the dynamics of the event, but it is so far removed from the event as to render such statements as misleading at the least, and more as wishful thinking at best.
The musicians ,or I should say, a part of them was in the room.
The parts that todays technology is limited to reproducing.

Hi guys - if I may chime in on a couple of things about this harmonica example:

Vertigo wrote: "a harmonica is an instrument that pushes very little air and since it pushes very little air, how it interfaces with the room is probably negligable."

This is incorrect. As any musician will tell you, every room has a very significant effect on your tone, no matter what the instrument. A professional musician can adjust for this variable and still create exactly the sound wanted in most cases, but this sometimes requires a fairly big adjustment. This does not have mainly to do with how the sound is created, by the way (so your speculation about the airstream size is almost irrelevant) - it is almost entirely the effect of the acoustics of the room on any sound in it.

As for this: "Am i missing something but isn't the bottom line this...that what is emanating from the speakers and what i hear from my live harmonica are negligible? (qualifier: the harmonica in my mouth has a different directional point of view since it is inches from my ears.)(but the timbres are negligible)(believe it or not... i don't care)"

One thing that needs to be added here, assuming that you are playing the harmonica, is that the sound you hear will be quite a bit different from the sound anyone else in the same room is hearing, for the simple reason that you, as the player of the harmonica, are also hearing the sound INSIDE your head. Again, this is by no means insignificant. If you record yourself, and listen to the playback over speakers, you will sound different to yourself (basically the same reason your own voice sounds different to you than to everyone else, or to you when you hear it recorded).

This is why musicians do not rely on their ears alone - we are constantly asking others to go out into the hall and listen to what we are doing for confirmation that it is indeed sounding exactly how we think it is. This is especially the case for my own instrument, the horn, since we have the additional circumstance of our bells facing backwards, but it is true of all instruments. We also record ourselves for the same reason, to make sure that we sound exactly like we think we do. You will also hear very tiny "impurities" in your sound, usually extraneous noise that your body is making along with the production of your tone that is not actually part of your tone, and which are inaudible to anyone else, even someone sitting right next to you, and which will not be picked up by the mike, even if it is placed ridiculously close, as digital mikes often are, but that's a whole other issue. You learn to separate these noises when critically listening to the sound you are producing. This is one of the main things that serious music students have to get used to - the fact that you do not hear your own tone exactly as everyone else does. But the main point is, no, the difference between what is emanating from the speakers and what you hear from your live harmonica will not be negligible, especially if you are talking about your own playing.

Hi guys...

RE***I like your part about tweaking the cartridge and about how subtle changes in tightening the mounting bolts affects the sound.

That implies to me how much you can veer one way or the other from accuracy with just a few twists of the wrist.
How will you know you when have it perfect?

You won't.***

How will i know? Honestly?

I just want to say that what is happening in regard to nirvana unplugged, norah jones, bob dylan and his harmonica and how it sounds can never be articulated through words. (for good or bad) So in light of that ...as sincere as we all may be, ultimately our discussion to some degree is an exercise in futility. Futility in that, we will "argue" because we are in ignorance of where each person is coming from. All i wish to say is that these rare tracks and concert dvd's thrill me! I am thrilled and absolutely satisfied. With the other recordings, i have the pleasure to try and progress and to try to reel in their sound to a place that brings me great pleasure. It is a work in progress.

For one. I don't expect studio to sound live. I don't want them too! Most studio recordings do not have that goal!!! And we need to note this and forget about trying to deconstruct what the producer did and foolishly try to make it sound live! You wouldn't want it too ...is my point!

More heresy!...

I very much like ...."produced album's" and don't want live!!!!or even a live show...

Why?

Because a producer and the studio are like an extra member of the band! Bringing his vision and his talent to the table. Ultimately a record is a collaboration between artist and the studio and the producer...and that's a great thing. I like a polished sound that is given a certain vision/direction.

What would joy division's album's be without the industrial/space rock sound effects added by their producer. He took those album's to another level!!! Thank God for studio's and producers and manipulated live sounds!

What would the joshua tree be without daniel lanois and brian eno? Just another bare bones live recording.(Yawn)(well, it still might be ok but just different)

Heresy!

Live...Recorded...its all good!...

But back to how will i know when the harmonica is perfect...

Ultimately...you are right...i won't know. But...I do know that bob is a fan of the humble "marine band" harmonica and if i blow through my own marine band harmonica's i can make a comparison between how IT sounds "live" and how HIS marine band harmonica is reproduced by my stereo. If those two sound close to identical...I think that's progress!(and they do sound close to identical!(not all things but this is one of)...the rest of the splitting of hairs doesn't matter. (to me anyways.) This is more than sufficient.

Re***Then again let's talk about the harmonica's you both own.
Even if they are the identical brand, and age of manufacture, they won't have been played the same so the rate of reed and metal fatigue will differ.You will both blow it differently.
Also is your living room where you listen to music identical to the recording studio?***

I don't know if the room is the same but a harmonica is an instrument that pushes very little air and since it pushes very little air, how it interfaces with the room is probably negligable. If it was an extremely live room (which if you listen to the recording is doubtful) it might produce alot of "flutter and echo" but instead it seems to come out of a "quite dead" room and what is recorded seems to be taken very close to the harmonica so much so that the room doesn't have a chance to contribute anything before the track is laid down. Even if there is some room effect you are getting what seems to be a very immediate direct (closely mic'd) stripped down recording of the harmonica.

re***the rate of reed and metal fatigue will differ.*** usually new strings and harmonica's are taken into the recording studio so instruments sound fresh and alive. Nobody goes into studio with a tired harmonica and tired strings. My harmonica is fresh too.

Am i missing something but isn't the bottom line this...that what is emanating from the speakers and what i hear from my live harmonica are negligible? (qualifier: the harmonica in my mouth has a different directional point of view since it is inches from my ears.)(but the timbres are negligible)(believe it or not... i don't care)

(now if i could only get nirvana "bleach"! to sound sensational!)(i am....working on it!)(check back in 2 years)(smile)

I just upgraded from 2 vh audio flavour 4 cables, to 2 airsine pc cords. And i switched some cables around. The differences have to be carefully assessed. I might now have lost the magic of the parameters i was getting with nirvana unplugged...it might now sound..."reproduced" which gets at what i am failing but trying to express..."great sound is hard work and a bit of "luck" and..."there is no clearly defined understanding of how or where you'll find ..."synergy""...You just have to find it... and find it with your ears...

This means that...expensive doesn't necessarily equal good. (good news for those with less) Nor does it mean that...VERY expensive will equal good. I'm skeptical that cheap can equal superlative...but tinkering with good products, plus some know how, plus some hard work, plus some luck, plus some tweaking, Plus learning from some failures leads to good sound.

RE***On a superior system YOU should be able to hear the differences.****

Still, how would you know since even if you have a "superior system" you are ignorant of the parameters that you mention.Therefore you still have no standard to measure against. Ultimately, we are all sculpting a sound that pleases relative to our understanding of what real timbres sound like and that is progressive and that's good enough!

On a funny note...there is a joke..."My system is so good/reference..it shows up 95 percent of my catalog as unlistenable!!!"(smile)

RE***I think vertigo has conveyed himself very well***

Thanks....

There's some things my system lacks...it doesn't play low enough (yet...)and at present i am trying to dial in my interconnect/pc/receptacle combo with the rest of the system. I am trying to dial in the cables by trying them in different places/combo's so that things sound identical to real instruments. It might take some time but the failures are as important as the successes.

Brilliant sound might be a cable change away and it is unpredictable, the only way to get that last fine nuance that you want , that imitates live sparse recordings/timbres ...is to experiment and listen. With every change ...other areas might need re-addressing to accommodate that change.

I have all my gear sitting suspended above slate with certain footers. I recently asked my friend to cut me some mdf which i plan to marry with the slate. Either alone not being as good as the combo glued together is my logic. Once i make this change all other parameters (in my world) need to be re tweaked to accommodate this change since the change is interfacing with the rest of what is going on in the system. Maybe nothing will need to be changed but maybe it will. It is my hope that the slate/mdf combo will neither be too dead or ring too much but will be "just right"(that is my hope)...and bring greater resolution, clarity, dynamics and timbral fidelity.

I don't expect my stereo to sound like 'live'(except if its playing something back RECORDED live(and recorded ...WELL! (at that).

I do want my stereo to reproduce timbres well and dynamics well. I expect it to play well recorded live music back well, poorly recorded music back poorly and "studio' recorded music back well too but i realize the limitations of studio (relative to live)(not better or worse, just a different animal) and expect no more or less than what the producers intentions were but i or no one, i think ...should mistakenly expect studio to be 'made' to become...live? That is a mistake, unfair and unreasonable and a category error. Studio is good and so are live recordings, i don't think people should discriminate between the two but should enjoy each for what they are and are not.

.

Hi Vertigo - I have been away from the computer for a few days. I do apologize for the pity comment. That was indeed going much too far.

I have been thinking about this subject while away from the forum the last couple of days, and I did come up with one example where there would not be a significant difference between live and recorded music, and this would be purely electronic, or synthesized music. However, some would say that this example does not even count, because in this case, there technically is no real live "performance," you are hearing a recording - even in a recital hall the piece is played over the sound system, not "performed". There was in fact a thread here in which this was discussed a couple of years ago, I think, though there the question was whether or not such an event constituted a performance.

However, in every other case I could possibly think of, there is a very significant difference between the sound of a live and recorded performance. Electric guitars, for example, have an acoustic element to them. There are a great many very subtle aspects of timbre in particular that are not picked up by a recording, no matter how well it is done and how good the system is that is playing it back. Or as Frogman has mentioned in another thread, there is an energy associated with time and rhythm that is not only physically felt but also perceived by the ear (or perhaps more accurately, the brain) that does not quite translate fully to a recording.

Quite honestly, I have never known a single individual who could not tell the difference between a live performance and a recording, even just a single human speaking voice, again even assuming your suggested experiment where you are in the same room and the exact same distance from the speakers as you are from the performer. I'm not talking about hearing a distant television set, say in another far off room, and not being able to tell if that is real or not. I have absolutely no doubt that you and anyone else could do your experiment with a person's voice which you had never heard before, and you would very easily, in fact instantly, be able to tell the difference blindfolded or however else you wanted to make the test.

"I am still hoping though.”

Me too Marqmike. After all, do we really have to recreate the entire output of a symphony orchestra in all its grandeur and subtlety? Or just, what I suspect, is the more achievable objective of reproducing what the human ear can detect.

As a play around guitar player with a variety of them I would say that on my $7,000 system optimized for guitars and stringed instruments it never has fooled me into sounding like it is the real thing(acoustics in real time and space). However the real thing is very elusive, never sounds the 100% the same twice maybe 95-98??, maybe 99 sometimes if your a pro. But I do find that I can almost recreate the real thing in my head with my system if all the stars are lined up. I can do it with digital and with analog. I think vertigo has conveyed himself very well, it is nice to discuss a topic like this because we hope that things will continue to improve and to know where to look when they do. It will be a better day in music reproduction when we can sit in our listening rooms and hear almost the real thing. Well played non amplified music is glorious. But I have a hard time seeing in the near future either format being real close to the real thing. I am still hoping though.

I like your part about tweaking the cartridge and about how subtle changes in tightening the mounting bolts affects the sound.

That implies to me how much you can veer one way or the other from accuracy with just a few twists of the wrist.
How will you know you when have it perfect?

You won't.

You weren't there to hear the sound of Bob's harmonica to know what it sounded like before the recording started.

Then again let's talk about the harmonica's you both own.
Even if they are the identical brand, and age of manufacture, they won't have been played the same so the rate of reed and metal fatigue will differ.You will both blow it differently.
Also is your living room where you listen to music identical to the recording studio?

Not likely, so your room will introduce colourations different from the recording studio.

How can you make statements like you make and say that your system makes Bob Dylan's harmonica sound just as real as when you play your harmonica?

I'll bet even if you used the same recording gear as Dylan used the two would sound different.

And this is the gist of the debate.

On a superior system YOU should be able to hear the differences.
To not hear the differences means the system isn't capable of the levle of resolution and realism need to distinguish between so many disparities.

This isn't meant to say your system sucks,it's just that this is the misguided thinking of most audiophiles.Because they like their systems and it sounds to them like the real thing,never having heard the real thing in real time in a real space identical to their own.

It's the concept some of us are trying to convey in this thread that some folks find hard to grasp or just don't want to believe.

Yes we would all like to think that we have assembled the most realistic system, and pat ourselves on the back and say "we're here, it's finished", alas, some of us know we are still very far away, and I don't think I'll live to see or hear the day when music or video is really duplicated in the confines of my personal space.

To put things into perspective,years ago I was quite pleased with my tv, and my stereo.All class A rated, top shelf.
I thought you couldn't get any better than this.
If everyone felt the same way as I did, then we would still be using all the same technology and systems today,
(some folks do).

Time passes and things did get much better.

I felt that i really needed to respond to your comments only because you seemed absolute/dogmatic about your statements. Also, that based upon my most recent experiences, i felt that the disparity you perceive between live music and what is possible with some new esoteric/cottage industry audio products and a carefully put together system(highly tweaked)(with some luck too!) was too great. I was hoping to convey that between live music and stereo playback it was my sincere belief that that gap has narrowed, especially with the products only available in the last 10 years . We are talking about some of the best people on the planet working with genuine passion trying to make really special products. It did hurt my feelings a bit when you said that you pitied me? I thought maybe that was going a bit too far and wasn't very charming of you? As the posts progressed i tried to qualify my statements trying to bridge the gap between our perceived differences by adding some qualifiers,hoping that would help.

For example, to repeat earlier qualifications , the times I've experienc recorded music sounding like live is very rare, for example 95 percent of the systems(i speculate), never come close and of the ones that do only 5 percent of the time, on 5 (maybe less) percent of an entire catalog does it come close to mimicing reality. I never said, nor meant to say that i have ever heard large scale orchestral music playback mimick live music. (though someone might have done it???) This is a more difficult challenge (in my mind) than sparse music (like, one voice, a guitar, a harmonica (nothing else). While sparse music is still a great challenge it is a LESSER challenge, i think than many different instruments , playing at once (with different/unique timbre/playback demands)(trying to get them all correct with one kind of speaker, cartridge etc etc) is going to be a tough challenge. (sometimes for example one cart is more suited for rock while another cart for orchestral(as you know)

I can understand how some thought it an absurd/arrogant statement, especially when it has become the norm/popular even to say that nothing can sound like live music and for someone to come along and ask the question "is it heresy to say that reproduced music can sound just like live"?

Yesterday, I played, bob dylan , "good as i been to you" american pressing lp, "sitting on top of the world" track. So, you should make a mental note that this is sparse music with only two instruments and a not very produced album. That means the amount of manipulation between the laying down of the tracks and the final mastering is small or non existent. So you have a very high fidelity record.(read... (great potential for sounding live)

The track contains, bob, his guitar, his harmonica. (I hear no effects added.) So i listen to the harmonica playback and then blow my own marine band harmonica. I did this back and forth several times and feel that if i were to grade my harmonica as a 100 points, i'd have to give the stereo played harmonica, i dont know, 96-100?

I think much of the credit must go to the allaerts cart as reeling in most of the timbral magic of the vocals and isntruments. Gold is a "weird" electrical conductor that imparts something lush, organic, and holographic to metal instruments. I've heard metal reproduced wrong many ways, that don't match reality, but this cart does something unprecedented (so far as my experience goes). The best analogy i can use to give a hint/to try and convey that quality is when you see a mirage created by heat off the road. You see something there, that really isn't but somehow it exists.

With it, in my minds eye i perceive the woodfibre and metals vibrating like the real instrument... the harmonica plays with a halo of no other artifacts surrounding it as it is reproduced by the stereo, just like when i blow it with my mouth. In other words, the noise floor around it is non existent, nothing else is added or subracted and its timbres are reproduced impeccably. The wood part is right, the metal part is right, its speed is right, the resolution is right...all these things together plus more are part of its "timbre"

If some people are spooked (on occasion) by stereo playback that means they are experiencing the emotion of 'fear'.

Why fear? Its just a stereo???That's odd.

But not really, i surmise the reason they are experiencing fear is because they feel something unnatural or ....supernatural is happening. Why? Because they are having an experience that their mind and previous experience has told them should not be possible! It's like seeing a ghost!

This would be my argument that stereo's today, have the potential to mimic reality and it seems reasonable to think, things will only get better in the next ten years!

It is quite rare when all the contingencies are perfect (i won't list how many there can be...(alot!)(nor do i think we know what they all are) that i hear reproduced music sound like live but i have to say that i have had/have that rare experience on the terms stated in all my above posts.

"Recorded music sounds like live music for me in my system"

Does it for 95 percent of my playback? No...less than that and on a few recordings/formats. Sometimes within one track, the voice is perfect but not the piano, etc.

Mapman says... The solution: keep tweaking until you get it right......

Amen.

On some days...i really get into it! I will spend an afternoon just tinkering with repeated tiny 20 degree turns of both my allaerts cart mounting bolts, recuing and relistening to the same song , listening , over and over and over, to see if this is the best this cart can sound. Then i will go to vtf and then back again to the mounting bolts! It is incredible how narrow the ideal and optimal setting for this cartridge is and though i don't know if i have nailed its optimal range yet i have seen how "resonant" signatures can effect how my cart sounds.

I have awoken after falling asleep in the middle of the night with teh music still playing and in that ttransition from sleep to awake been fooled momentarily. Then once all your senses come around, you know where you are and what you are listening to. Hard to get around that. I can close my eyes and convince myself that what I hear is close to live, but does it really or does it even matter? IF I am clearly not convinced otherwise, or otherwise put off by what I hear, then I think that is practically the most one can hope for and realistically achieve. The rest either doesn't really matter and/or may be a pipedream not worth pursuing.

My first listening experiences were as a two year old listening to the 78 rpm vinyl that my parents played on a console tv set in the early 1950's.

Years later when I stsrted to learn how to play, i used the same system ,but the records were 45's and 33 lps.

Maybe it was because the amplification was tubes and the sound of vinyl that left a lasting impression on me to this day.Maybe just nostalgia,but I was very happy with that system, but it was the only one I had experience with.

Yes I can appreciate the music for the music's sake on any cheap system.A goodsong is a good song, you enjoy it.

But the big difference, the time when you have an epiphany, is when you hear that good music played back on a system that just does it better.

This was my experience, and after hearing new stuff on a favourite lp that I never heard before, I set out in this hobby.

The main purpose was to get all the music I was paying for.
In other words I wanted 100% of the musical content from the lp,not the 35% I was mostly getting with inferior gear.

Skip ahead several decades and finding some other fellows in this hobby and discovering different tastes in music, different system configurations and upping my knowledge of music reproducing systems.And changing my preferces in music and the gear that reproduced it.
It was great that I had knowledgeable friends in audio who were will to spend the time demonstrating what to hear and what to listen for so that I too could make buying decisions that would move me forwards and not back or sideways.Some dealers actually cared that you spent your money on something that was better just not different.
Some were quite opinionated and aliented a few customers,but like one audio dealer friend said, he wasn't into the hobby just to move boxes.If he was he would have sold more than just 2 channel audio.
And this was back in the mid 90's, well before the fashion of today.
I learned a lot about this hobby from my weekly visits to his salon.He was also an expert at getting great sound at audio shows and was a system set up expert.

One particular audio friend has a cost no object system,I could drop names, but let's leave it that just the cost of the Scarlatti digital set up is an idication of what lies thereafter.In all fairness I should mention the turntable is SME 30/12, SME5, Clearaudio goldfinger cart.We both prefer the vinyl rig, but which is more accurate?Who cares, both are amazing.

Now this is a system that only a few of the top audio salons can assemble.

This was the system that led me to what sonic improvements to already great components can be made when you start to address the power going to your electronics.

Great sounding gear was made to sound even better when power issues were addressed.
Power issues that some folks with mid level gear feel aren't necessary because their gear is perfect and doesn't need anything but a stock power cord into the wall.

But as much as the electronics disappear and leave just the music behind in this system,it still doesn't fool me into making statements like the "musicians were in the room with me".But it is fantastic at retrieving in both formats what is recorded in the black or silver discs.

And I've heard a lot of other very good music reproducing system of all stripes that also are great at reproducing the music but that can't duplicate the actual live experience.

Again I stress that most decent system can reproduce but not duplicate a live musical event,and you don't need golden ears, you don't have to be a mucician, or concert goer to tell the differences.

And you don't need to be any of the above to appreciate a decent hifi set up either.Even newbies can distinguish good sound from bad.
It is then left to you to decide whether it is worth the investment to move from where you are to the next level.

You may be quite content with earbuds and MP3, some of us are not, but no one can say any of us have the ultimate system giving us the ultimate pleasure of recreating the live event.

We can assemble hifi systems that are the eqivalent of the best High Def televisions of the day, or we can still be enjoying last centuries cathode tube tvs.

We will both laugh at the same jokes,still get the gist of what's going on, but the latest tv's will allow us to view the entertainment with more detail retrieval than ever before.

People seem to embrace the extra detail when presented in a visual manner, and yet some reject the extra detail when it comes to sonics.

I read a lot about folks who are put off when the details get in the way of music, making it sterile, fatiguing etc,and prefer more rolled off forgiving romantic types of sounds.

Yet I'll bet they wouldn't trade in their HD tv's and go back to what their parents owned in the 60s.

The newer tvs, and electronic of today have progressed,I would say everything is more accurate, more detailed,than what came before.

So why the backlash? If you are looking for accuracy it's out there in today's gear.If you want nostalgia and romance it can be found new and used.

But I will bet the farm that just as impossible as it is for the best of todays tv technology to duplicate what you see on the screen and bring it to life in your living room, neither can or will a hifi system duplicate and bring the musicians in full scale into your living room.

And yet we can be entertained with things just as they are.

Acuracy in anything can only be gauged against two things, one that is superior to what we have experienced and one that is inferior to what we have knowledge of.

In other words, based on our personal experience,we only know what's worse or better than what we have knowledge of.

Until you hear a system that does everything better than your own system you will think that what you have assembled is pretty accurate and leave it as it is.

When you do hear a superior system, if you can't buy the goods, then find ways to make what you have sound better than it did and narrow the gap, and as the fellow said"keep tweaking till you get it right"

I agree if there is a huge difference between live and home listening in general, and it is something taht bothers you, there is probably something that can be done to close the gap.

I had that problem up until about two years ago. Since then it has become a non issue. The solution: keep tweaking until you get it right......

Vertigo - I think most people reading this thread will understand that you have misrepresented my comments. It seemed to me that you were clearly implying that I and everyone else disagreeing with you don't know what we are talking about, that our ears must be inferior, and that we haven't ever heard a really good system, and I was merely responding to that by informing you of my experience. My irritation at your attitude certainly was obvious in my post, but that was all it was. I know I am not the best writer, especially late at night when I am tired and irritated, but I assure you I would never resort to the type of argument you are now trying to attribute to me, which I definitely agree is hogwash, and I meant nothing of the sort. I think my main point was and is obvious enough, and needs no further elaboration.

If I am mistaken in your attitude, and my irritation is misplaced, I do apologize. I leave you the field, since further discussion seems pointless, and I sincerely wish you joy with your listening.