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In Reply to: RE: True, but IF you had subscribed for YEARS... posted by josh358 on September 17, 2015 at 17:44:13
One of the many audiophile mantras I hear is that live sound can never be duplicated from a recording. I think this is not only nonsense, it's a very unrealistic view considering the things that can be done few would ever have imagined possible only relatively recently.
Instead of being a statement of fact, it is an apology for those who have tried and failed. As I said previously I've met many of these people who work in this industry as well as a lot of people who work in far more technically challenging industries and frankly the one's I'm aware of just aren't up to it. They are not that good. They focus their efforts on doing the same things that haven't worked in the past only doing them better. This is why for me, every new and improved product on the market, hyped in the reviews, whether they are of any real value or not is just ho hum.
Follow Ups:
Well, i don't think anyone has ever said that live sound can't be duplicated perfectly -- in theory. But there are enormous barriers to doing so, including:
1. Customers how don't want realistic sound
2. Conductors who aren't audiophiles
3. Tin-eared producers in the Kazdin mold
4. The cost advantages of multitrack recordings, mixers who think they're Toscanini, poor engineering
5. Technical limitations of existing transducers, converters, etc. -- some a consequence of poor equipment choice and maintenance, some a consequence of cost and practicality, some a limitation of the state of the art
6. Commercial pressure to accommodate cheap playback gear -- and even most audiophile gear can't reproduce the full dynamic range of live acoustical music
7. The inability of two-channel stereo to fully recreate the original sound field; existing multichannel systems are only marginally better (object oriented recording shows promise)
8. The stick-in-the-mud attitude of some audiophiles, who just want to improve 1950's technology rather than moving on -- I've heard from manufacturers that they'd love to do this or that, but their customers won't buy it -- sometimes this is a great frustration for them, because they know they could be delivering better sound
9. The conflict between the practical acoustics of a real-world living room and the requirements for realistic playback -- this is a biggie, along with wife acceptance factor -- how do you recreate an acoustic space within a second acoustic space that you can't turn into an anechoic chamber?
So in practice, I don't see how it's doable, except in very limited and carefully controlled circumstances (a violin recording in Carnegie Hall, for example, as in the old Acoustic Research live/canned demonstrations). Someday. We could probably come close today with headphones, head tracking, and HRTF compensation using recordings of individual instruments convolved with concert hall acoustics. Or with a large two-dimensional array that could rereate the original sound field. Or sophisticated crosstalk canceller/HRTF compensation like the BAACH filter. But with the possible exception of BAACH these aren't quite practical/economical yet for widespread use. We're getting pretty close. Most of the components exist, but they haven't yet come together for consumer use.
I pick number 7.
I've heard what is probably the best Ambiophonic system in the world and it was very interesting, a most unusual effect. But it didn't sound like hearing live music to me. It surely took a lot of effort (not to mention money) to bring this concept to fruition and my congratulations go out to Ralph. I've met him and he is very smart and also very likeable and generous.
I think it's a big, big part of it. The other is the effect of listening room acoustics.
Just listening to a binaural recording on headphones is a good way of hearing what we're missing, and even binaural recordings are pretty seriously flawed because of HRTF mismatch and the absence of head movement.
I think we have to go beyond ambiphonics and other multichannel systems to crosstalk cancellation, wave field synthesis, dynamic HRTF compensation, and similar techniques.
Full wave field synthesis isn't yet economical but I think we could do a pretty good job with existing multitrack masters and lateral wave field synthesis with some cheats around the edges. Something I'd love to work on myself but I'm not sure how to commercialize it given the absence of a consumer channel for suitable program material. You could build the box and the speakers, but what would people play on it? The record companies would have to be willing to provide their masters in audio object form, e.g., in the Atmos format, and the recording venue specs for convolving reverb (or identification of a suitable one, no reason you couldn't use a standard library, even pick a hall yourself).
In the meantime, I'd settle for some uncompressed, high bit rate two- or three-mic recordings -- played through line source dipoles they're spectacular and put most commercial recordings to shame.
Most if not all my Direct to disc recordings delivers this pretty well and if digitally , Reference recordings CD's deliver big too, got a couple of Dave Wilson CD's which are fantastic in the way they capture the church , Choir and Organ ...
Regards
Edits: 09/19/15
Yes, they are some fine audiophile recordings out there. If only there were good recordings of everything!
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