What is it I'm failing to grasp?
I come across statements here and elsewhere by guys who say 1) their systems come very close to duplicating the experience of hearing live music and 2) that they can listen for hours and hours due to the "effortless" presentation.
I don't understand how these two claims add up. In tandem, they are profoundly inconsistent with my experiences of listening to live music.
If I think about concerts I consider the best I've witnessed (Oregon, Solas, Richard Thompson, SRV, Dave Holland Quintet, '77 G. Dead, David Murray, Paul Winter Consort), I would not have wanted any of those performances to have extended much beyond their actual duration.
It's like eating-- no matter how wonderfully prepared the food, I can only eat so much-- a point of satiation is reached and I find this to be true (for me) when it comes to music listening as well. Ditto for sex, looking at visual art, reading poetry or playing guitar. All of these activities require energy and while they may feel "effortless" in the moment, I eventually reach a point where I must withdraw from aesthetic simulation.
Furthermore, the live music I've heard is not always "smoothly" undemanding. I love Winifred Horan's classically influenced Celtic fiddling but the tone she gets is not uniformly sweet; the melodies do not always resemble lullabies. The violin can sound quite strident at times. Oregon can be very melodious but also,(at least in their younger days) quite chaotic and atonal. These are examples on the mellower side of my listening spectrum and I can't listen to them for more than a couple hours, either live or at home.
Bottom line: I don't find listening to live music "effortless" so I don't understand how a system that renders this activity "effortless" can also be said to be accurate.
What is it that I'm failing to grasp, here?
To venture into a different direction. Please continue to support live music. Regardless of sound quality. In many cases the only way these folks can survive. Live music reference point sort of a straw man. But what else are you going to use as a comparison? The radio? Another person's system? Dealer's? Forum opinions? |
Sorry, this is a little off subject. Always nice to see your enthusiasm talking about room acoustics. I never sit down on my home computer to be able to spend a lot of time blogging about it since I only use it for work as a self discipline. However I do blog here and there from my cellphone and will simply say that I have spent more than twice the money on room soundproofing and acoustic treatments than I have on equipment. But I am well behind your knowledge of room mechanical acoustics. My house of stereo is already so busy as the pics show that I don't know where I would start experimenting with any of that. Any suggestions? |
@rifraf4u you’ve got the wrong site, this isn’t the place to be soliciting. |
@baylinor that work looks incredible, that’s a seriously dedicated room which I bet sounds amazing. |
@stuartk , they are all listening to the real sound, just from a different perspective. Once recorded you can only listen to one perspective, that of the recording engineer. EQ is certainly one way of dealing with problems. For a high end system only digital EQ will work well. This is readily available with most room control preamplifiers. The Trinnov Amethyst has a 1/3 octave EQ from 20 Hz to 24 kHz. I'm afraid a DAC is not going to give you more weight and density. That requires power and low bass. You can not hear bass below 20 Hz but you sure can feel it. It is that visceral sensation that makes live performances so exciting. Large rooms breath and resonate at very low frequencies, they have an acoustic signature and much of this is below 20 Hz. This information also gets into good live recordings. Powerful, large subwoofers with digital bass management is the best way to accomplish this. MiniDSP makes a great little digital subwoofer crossover which is not too expensive. You get a commercial amp like a QSC and build two 15" subwoofer kits from Parts Express. You will get the job done for very little money and have a subwoofer system better than most commercial units. |
