Real or Surreal. Do you throw accuracy out the window for "better" sound?


I visited a friend recently who has an estimated $150,000 system. At first listen it sounded wonderful, airy, hyper detailed, with an excellent well delineated image, an audiophile's dream. Then we put on a jazz quartet album I am extremely familiar with, an excellent recording from the analog days. There was something wrong. On closing my eyes it stood out immediately. The cymbals were way out in front of everything. The drummer would have needed at least 10 foot arms to get to them. I had him put on a female vocalist I know and sure enough there was sibilance with her voice, same with violins. These are all signs that the systems frequency response is sloped upwards as the frequency rises resulting in more air and detail.  This is a system that sounds right at low volumes except my friend listens with gusto. This is like someone who watches TV with the color controls all the way up. 

I have always tried to recreate the live performance. Admittedly, this might not result in the most attractive sound. Most systems are seriously compromised in terms of bass power and output. Maybe this is a way of compensating. 

There is no right or wrong. This is purely a matter of preference accuracy be damn.  What would you rather, real or surreal?

128x128mijostyn
Do the variations coming from your specific experience and seated position fundamentally change the sound from a cello or other, even compared to that perceived by another individual sharing the same event, and the variations at play here? I know, no way to check on the latter part of the question posed, but it doesn’t matter - to me that applies more to intersubjectivity than subjectivity per se; while you wouldn’t have the very same sonic experience as the other person sitting at a distance from you (or yourself in another position), you’d nonetheless - both of you - take part in the same event and share its overall characteristics.
 
 
We spoke about an acoustic experience here....I will repeat in my answer to you one of my post above:
 

 

 
«sound is a pressure wave which is
created by a vibrating object»
 
 
Is this definition truthful to the phenomenon? Not at all.... It is not even wrong ...
 
 
It is true if we define sound as a purely material physical phenomenon...But sound is not a purely material physical phenomenon but a qualified phenomenon for a specific consciousness...
 
In daily life , natural perceived sounds and speech and music are not only physical pressure waves uninterpreted by the ears/brain they are interpreted by a hearing consciousness to be perceived as meaningful in a concrete time domain where the qualitative experienced acoustic factors are always related in a non linear way; in the opposite a physical pressure wave is defined in an abstract parameters space where these abstract factors as frequencies, phase and amplitude are linearly related in a MAP describing often IN AN UNCOMPLETED WAY the conscious/subconscious perceived TERRITORY.... There exist many competing theories of hearing and different mapping theory for the same territory...
 
The fact that a fruit tapped by a finger indicating his ripeness or his lack of ripeness constitute an interpreted sound qualities whose meaning is not sensible ....
 
In the same way a flute is a material object with holes of some size in such distribution to make it able to produce qualified sound , with some tonal timbre qualities; these sounds exist for a consciousness as meaningful conveyor of an information that transcend physical time because the tonal scale develop a musical time domain of his own called a rythmed melody , which is not reducible to the abstract factors linearly related in the Fourier map...The same goes for speech "musical time" in speech recognition studies ....
 
The human ears/brain is trained to live in this concrete non commutative time domain ( the speech and the musical domain ) because it is a non linearly qualified domain; it is why the ears/brain if trained well can beat the Fourier uncertainty principle thirteen times...
 
 
This is the reason why audiophiles must study music and acoustic and not only listening their gear if they want to understand sound...And they must forget about marketing and price tag focussing on acoustics and music learning...
 
Accuracy in a Fourier abstract map does not always linearly translate automatically as accuracy in the concrete perceived territory...
 
Real in a Fourier abstract map may become surreal in the perceived concrete territory....
 
Time domain in the map NEVER coincide perfectly with time domain in the territory ...
 
Acoustics science without perceiving ears/brain will not exist is it necessary to mention this common place fact ? ....😁
 
The mere physical waves would not be qualified for an absent consciousness, hence without conscious/subconscious ears there could not be a "sound" as a quality and a meaningful " symbolic forms" living in his own transcendant time and space ...
 
 
 
Now sound studies being not only material physics subject but as recognized sound also psycho-acoustic studies; we can safely say that sound experience as experience is NOT OBJECTIVE NOR SUBJECTIVE , but this experience integrated these two aspects to make it possible experience...
 
Now no one listening music in a live event will hear the same exact TIMBRE experience , by the acoustic difference in time and timing of the waves and the specific location ... Even the violonist will hear his tonal playing timbre in a specific location no more truthfull or erroneous, no more objective nor subjective than any other position ...
 
But you are right, there is some truth about the sound timbre of a cello describeable in acoustic parameters... But a specific experience of a tonal playing timbre of the cello will be differentiated in as much perspective as the multiplicities of ears/brains locations... And we speak here about a live event... With a recording playback, the trade off set of choices of the recording engineers will be translated differently as much that there is different ears/brains with different systems in different room ... Which cello timbre experience is the objective truth among all this ? NONE... But for sure there exist some objective acoustic common parameters between the live event, the recording one, and his translation in your room ...But the timbre experience is different in all these for all listeners...
 
 
 
From my chair, in the context of audio reproduction, it’s a fallacy thinking something not achieved as an exact replica of an original event can’t represent, in variations or approximations of realness in a progressive manner, said event as an objective "something." Too many seem to believe that what can’t be emulated in every aspect in audio reproduction is in essence a venture suffused in subjectivity.
 
 
Then if you understand what i said above , we must distinguish the acoustic objective SPECIFIC perspective in location of any listener in the original live event and his subjective interpretation and the OBJECTIVE trade off choices of the recording engineer which will be transformed in an OBJECT ( music album ) and our own specific location and acoustic situation in our listening room ... Then there is no absolutely objective truthfulness in audio reproduction as you claimed , there is only a correlated set of links in a CHAIN of trade-off choices INTERPRETATION ...
 
But thanks to mathemathical acoustics laws we can translate a recording, more or less acoustically truthfully for sure, for a specific room specific system and specific ears.. ...Dr Choueiri even discovered a way to gave us an information lost with this crosstalk obstruction of stereo speakers and then translate for our ears/brain more accurately this lost recording of spatial information by the stereo crosstalk... Then there is an absolute objective "reality" or an objective symbolic form  : mathematics is...
 
And to conclude with a philosophical remark, what is missing in Kant because of a residual Cartesianism and a residual nominalism so to speak, what is missing which is already in Charles Sanders Peirce vision is the necessary participation of consciousness in the definition of any reality which cannot exist in itself anyway and is always to use the concept of one of the greatest interpreter of Kant , a "symbolic form" said Cassirer ... Consciousness is ONE...

 

I've ran sound for hundreds of thousands of people live, recorded albums, and won Oscars for sound and in every project or concert there were always a lot of concessions and compromises to what I would have liked to do. That golden no compromises project in any field doesn't really exist. I've recorded horrible sound and not fought the producers when I should have to keep my job even on huge projects. 

Get a system that sounds most accurate. I just bought a new Boulder preamp and it changed everything I realized it is wrong to listen to extra chocolaty chocolate just because you like how that chocolate tastes. We all know the difference between sounding buttery and sounding accurate if you listen long enough. Accuracy is most important and it is what audiophiles should demand not subjective flavored sound. 
There are many reasons why engineers record projects that aren't like live acoustic performances, there is ALWAYS the annoying tendency to -add energy -to sell more music and sound different than the next studio down the hall. 
 

@mapman 
I agree with your points in many ways but I think music isn't subjective. The recorded music that comes through your system should be the same signal that comes out of everyone's system and has been molded into a very particular product. Perhaps you like or dislike aspects of that product but if you were in the room with the mastering engineer and producer when they finished the recording you would know exactly what the product was. There is no interpretation or subjective data that your consciousness defines, the info in the signal doesn't change your perception of it does. This is why accuracy is the most important part of music it doesn't matter if you enjoy it that is not the point often in art you want to make the end user uncomfortable. Movies are emotional and they are enjoyed differently by the end user mostly depending on their understanding. If the original music or movie is played back inaccurately all the craftsmanship is lost to subjective unknowns. 

So all the craftsmanship of Fleetwood Mac has been lost to the millions of people who have bought their albums, CDs, and streamed their music playing it back on less than stellar equipment?  Is that what the surviving members of Fleetwood Mac think?

@brev 

No brev, the craftsmanship of Fleetwood Mac is not lost at all (at least until Peter Green left). It is the craftsmanship of the recording engineers that is lost and the vast majority of people do not care about that at all, only people like me and donavabdear care about it. 

@donavabdear 

Don't you think that at some level what the engineers do is affected by the system they are listening to? If their systems are not accurate how can the work be accurate?