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General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

I honestly don't think that is what the engineers are trying to do...

"I think in the future, we will see far more clever engineers who are not imbeciles who will bring radically different approaches to design equipment for reproducing sound"

Soundmind:

What one would need to pass your 'live/recorded' acid test is radically different approaches to how live music is recorded in the first place. I honestly don't think that "fooling the listener into thinking he is really there" is the current end to which recording engineers are making CDs/DVDs. Even the surround sound recording - which 'allegedly' can be used to recreate a venue - is more often used to create "spacey effects" which are not true to the live performance at all. Reminds me of the maracca player SITTING BEHIND YOU in the Eagles Hell Freezes over concert. Uh - wasn't he on stage somewhere? Recording engineers are not imbeciles- they're just making stereo recordings the same way they've been doing it since the invention of the microphone and the mixing console: take instruments recorded with mono mics, and "pan" them across a virtual soundstage and record it onto a stereo master.

Equipment engineers are not idiots either. But they are TOLD what to build by their boss who listens to MARKET RESEARCH teams and not us whiners here at the asylum. Are the guys at Toshiba who built a $120 DVD player with 24bit/192khz DACs that can play every format known to man, with 2-channel sound that rivals some $1000+ CD players? C'mon. They can't be THAT dumb. Give 'em a break!! lol

Don't get me wrong one bit... if I could have a stereo system that COULD make me believe I was at a live performance, I would be all over it. But I honestly think it would require special recordings, very accurate setup, and digital room correction / alteration. And it would require a unique convolution impulse for each unique venue (churches, concert halls and collesiums are all unique reverberant environments). In fact, on the internet some guys are actually handing out impulse files for famous churches and other places - heck you COULD attempt to use that data. You could cancel out your room response and add in the response of the desired venue at the same time!

That being said, I like your concept. It would be awesome. But my point (which was not meant to be a personal slam/attack) was that your live/recorded test is FAR more stingent than anybody was recording or designing for in the first place.

It's like laughing at a kid who failed to get his model rocket into orbit. It's a simulation of a rocket - it's not a real rocket. And live recordings are simulations of live events. The word "reproduction" in audio implies "recreation" when it is really only capable of a pleasant SIMULATION.

I do think there is a case for pharmaceutical innovation here - we just need the right DRUG to think we're there man.

Pfffffffffooot...(ear!) <- you should not know what that means. :o)

Cheers,

Presto


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