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In Reply to: RE: Unless of course posted by mkuller on April 20, 2016 at 08:15:48
The cnances of being present at the recording are pretty remote for the vast majority of consumers of commercial recordings. Of course if you were lucky enought to be there then you could pass a judgement upon accuracy but this still depends upon the recall of a unique memory rather than a general memory that we may have of what a generic trumpet sounds like, for example. Memory is a very unreliable friend especially when the time that has elapsed between the event and the commercial issue of the recording can be months or years.
Sometimes the soundstage on a record sounds like it may well be accurate but if fact it is not. For example years ago I was at a Decca recording session of a choral work at the Kingsway Hall. Play the resulting record and the soundstage sounds convincing. However, in fact, the chorus was placed above the orchestra in a gallery. This positioning cannot be accurately reproduced through a conventional stereo system.
Interestingly in about 4 hours I will be at a concert and will be able to listen to a recording of it it through my system tomorrow morning. I may think that it sounds reasonably like what I heard in regard to soundstage. But is it? I have no way of, for example, measuring the accuracy of this factor.
Note that I am not arguing that a soundstage is irrelevent. However the OP cited Art Dudley in respect of " the ability of a system to accurately reproduce a soundstage ". I just don't know how you can verify if a soundstage is accurately reproduced. I wouldn't rely upon audio memory. That's why I say you need to be content with plausibility.
Follow Ups:
But if you are listening to a recording of music in a real space would you want to hear how those instruments interact in that space at least to some extent, even if it is not totally accurate?? For sure some soundstage and imaging will be more accurate than a flat soundstage and flat imaging or none at all with sound swirling hither and thither?? To say it is not important is just a bit nutty and to negate about the last 70 years of what sound engineers were trying to accomplish.
Maybe if you are deaf in one ear and can't hear in stereo (not sure if that is true or not btw.) then it won't matter but otherwise it is an aspect of realistic sound reproduction and systems that fail at it, with proper recordings of course, are just simply doing something wrong.
" But if you are listening to a recording of music in a real space would you want to hear how those instruments interact in that space at least to some extent, even if it is not totally accurate??"
Yes I would indeed. However I am not arguing that soundstaging is not important. In fact I have reiterated in another response in the thread that I am merely referring to the opinions of Art Dudley and Julian Vereker. In fact I said elsewhere in this thread "a system without any sense at all of a soundstage would to me , and I think most experienced listeners, sound wrong or unsatisfactory".
The cnances of being present at the recording are pretty remote for the vast majority of consumers of commercial recordings.
Over time, however, I find that the ability to judge what is realistic is not that difficult.
"Accurate" has no meaning when the result sounds like live, unamplified music as I have previously experienced countless times before.
..in that case, how can you judge the "accuracy" of anything you hear?
Since you weren't where the mics were placed and the sound of everything will vary somewhat according to where you sit - "realistic" is enough for me.
Accuracy in playback is meaningless. Accurate to what. The sound in the studio? The sound in the control room? The sound in the mastering room? As long as you enjoy the sound and music that is what counts
Alan
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