|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
76.219.188.187
In Reply to: RE: "As far as I'm concerned audio is there to serve my aesthetics not the other way around." posted by genungo on July 28, 2015 at 17:45:13
"It's almost seems as if you're confusing the realities present in live musical events with the realities present in recordings."I am asking you specifically about how you judge the sound quality of live events. There is no confusion on my part. Still looking forward to your answers on those clear specific questions about how you judge the sound qualities of live music.
"For instance: Sure, you can walk around the room at any live music venue and you'll notice slightly different sounding versions of the same event sonic event at each new location, but you cannot (dare I say "should not"?) try to do the same thing with a recording."
I have actually walked around the "room" at a number of concert halls while live music is being played to judge the sound of the hall from the many different sitting positions. In *every* case the sound quality varies quite widely. Your assertion that the sound quality of live music at concert halls varies "slightly" Is simply wrong. There is no reason to bring audio playback into this. Again, I was asking you about live music and specifically what you use as a standard of measure of excellence for sound quality of live music.
So I will ask again. Let's see if you can answer the questions asked this time.
"you state that you "will decide if a live acoustic performance is taking place in an favorable acoustic setting or an unfavorable one."
By what objective standard do you judge that?You state that you "must judge everything according to the standards you formulate and the memories you entertain, but you would hope that both of these things are grounded in reality somehow."
That doesn't make sense. all live music is grounded in reality because it is all real. But you concede that it is not all equal. So by what standard do you judge. It can't be "by reality" because all live music is equally real but not equal in sound quality. So what is the standard?
You state that you "respect the *real*, and you try to honor the intentions of the recording engineers, if honorable they are."
Again, all live music is real. But it is not all equal. so "real" can not be the standard by which you judge live music. So what is it?
You state that "Of course it is your *subjective evaluation* saying that not all live performances and not all acoustic venues are created equal. Hopefully, your subjective evaluations will at all times be informed ones though."
Informed by what? What is the standard?
Edits: 07/28/15Follow Ups:
I had thought that I had answered all or most of your questions so far. Re-read some of the previous posts just to make sure, as I'm too tired for it right now. Besides, I'm starting to think that this discussion is becoming pointless.And yes, all things that are real are not equally worthy to me. This does not necessarily mean, however, that I am eschewing the "real". It might only mean that I'm being selective, narrowing down my choices according to subjective and possibly even "objective" judgements and observations. One might say that recordings provide us with a dose of "selective" reality but if they are good recordings they do sound real, convincing, proportionally correct (if miniaturized) in scale, etc...
What I'm after is music that is both "real" (or "sounds like real") and "good sounding", be it live music or music on a recording. OK? I do believe it is possible to have both things, simultaneously. Others can keep the bad-sounding reality if they want it.
Edits: 07/28/15 07/29/15
Actually you have managed to not answer the questions multiple times now. I suspect you don't want to answer the questions because you know it completely undermines the axiom that accuracy to live music in audio is a valuable goal.
Doesn't matter. I already know the answer to the question. There is no standard by which you or anyone judges the quality of sound of live music other than their personal aesthetic values. No references needed. And this aesthetic value that has no standards or references of it's own is what you believe should be a reference by which one should judge audio playback.
If you can't see the fundamental problem with insisting on people using a reference that in and of itself is overly broad in it's scope and also varies in excellence but has no standard by which it's excellence can be judged then I really don't know what else to tell ya
"If you can't see the fundamental problem with insisting on people using a reference that in and of itself is overly broad in it's scope and also varies in excellence but has no standard by which it's excellence can be judged then I really don't know what else to tell ya"
C'mon, Scott - that's a mischaracterization of what genungo is saying. There's nothing overly broad about it. Just because live events and locations vary in excellence is no reason to throw out the baby with the bath water. In the case of concert halls for instance, there are certain objective, measurable characteristics that go into the construction of a good hall. (And BTW, I'm not using "good" aesthetically here - perhaps I should say "a hall which accurately projects sound to the listener"!) Although it's taken us a long time to learn the right lessons to apply, I'd say that the success of modern halls such as Disney Hall, or the Helsinki Music Center are the proof of the pudding that there's an objective component to the judgement of live music. It's not all just likes and dislikes.
What people mean when they say they use live music as a reference is live music in its most ideal form - some elements of which are objective and can be measured objectively. Your bringing in of some middling concert hall in Venezuela where Yuja played isn't really relevant. OK, so they made a recording there and had to correct all the bad qualities that were present. Great! I'm glad they did that! Still, that in no way changes the fact that our reference for recorded music is an accurate rendition of good instruments in good halls. Paradoxically, the very fact that the engineers had to tinker around with Yuja's concert in Venezuela to get the recording to approach that ideal is the proof that the notion of accuracy is an essential element in our judgements!
Again, I go back to the concepts of abstraction and idealization as the twin bases of judging recordings: abstraction in the sense that, through our experiences, we have abstracted what real instruments playing in real spaces actually sound like (good or bad!) and we insist that recordings must relate to this, and idealization in the sense that, both in the concert hall and in the living room, we want the best possible representations of what our abstracted notions of sound quality are derived from, i.e., real sounds in real locations.
IOW, it's both. And if you insist that it's just one or the other (accuracy or aesthetics), then you're arguing from an extremist (and, if I may say so, inaccurate!) point of view IMHO.
p.s.: When you listen to your sound system, do you like to try to correlate your likes and dislikes to something objective (i.e., which can be measured)? Or are your likes and dislikes completely sufficient for you to judge whatever you hear (equipment, recording quality, or even the performance itself)? I'd lay odds that even you have an objective notions of accuracy influencing your judgements somehow. ;-)
A valiant effort, Chris.I sensed the problem right at the beginning. The problem is that this hobby is not only about audio logic, at least to some people. Scott has found his way. Gordon Holt and other have found theirs...
The "Hi" in Hi-fi might be said to refer the degree of effort some of us put into dealing with the audio equation in an "objective" manner. I think that, in order to be objective at all, you need to have some kind of an absolute reference along with the tools necessary to dig that reference out from it's resting place. I, for one, think that it is not possible to be 100% objective. But if we try really, really hard I think that we can be *mostly objective* - at least much of the time. I believe that our senses alone can (if we let them) provide us with a awful lot of objectively "accurate" information.
And so, I believe that we can build a fairly "accurate" sounding system. If we set up a decent pair of speakers properly in an appropriate room, I think that it is possible to hear what a truly good recording was MEANT to sound like - with a high degree of "accuracy". Good recordings are made for good speaker systems, and visa-versa.
We can, by trying hard and using decent tools, get usefully close to Holt's Hi-Fi ideal. "Hi-fi" can (and often does) have more than one *reference*. It NEEDS *at least* one reference. Not all references are created equal though, IMO.
I believe that the search for "aesthetics" in Hi-Fi is mostly tied up with the search for excellent record playback. Let the record speak for itself (as much as possible). Add a bit your own aesthetic sense via system tweaking (if you want to) as if it is the frosting on the cake, not as if it is part of the cake itself.
In the end this is only audio, thankfully. None of this mucky muddoo matters that much at all, really. I'm sure Scott has a blast when he listens to music, more power to him.
Edits: 07/30/15 07/30/15 07/30/15 07/30/15 07/30/15 07/30/15
I can't make heads or tails of what Gengo is saying.If one is claiming the "sound of live music" (without qualification) is their reference then I would say it is waaaaaay overly broad. If that is the criteria then it follows that both 10th row center seat at Disney Hall listening to the L.A. Phil and sitting in the back corner of a high school auditorium with a junior high school marching band playing are both legitimate references. That's pretty dang broad and pretty dang useless. But they are both live music. I have heard plenty of live music at real concert halls played by professional musicians that did not sound good and would be a piss poor standard to judge the quality of sound of any recording/playback.
You are absolutely right that there are objective measurable parameters by which we can judge the acoustics of any concert hall. But do you know the history behind that metric? It was created by using listening panels and having them listen to live music in various spaces and having them subjectively rate the quality of the sound. What was the standard? How good did it sounded to them. There was no reference point. It was purely subjective. And out of the body of purely subjective listening tests they were able to derive an objective scale. (so consistent were the results that they were very much able to call the metric objective). The point being the metric was quite simply human aesthetic values.
So why would we need a point of reference to judge the aesthetic value of recording and playback?
I really don't agree that most people mean by "live music" that it is live music *in it's most ideal form*. It is becoming more and more clear that most audiophiles don't really have enough experience with live music to understand just how much it varies in nature. Even in the same building from different seats! (this thread is evidence of that)
How on earth is bringing up the national concert hall in Venezuela "not relevant?" That is not a high school gym! That is the national concert hall of Venezuela and home to the Simon Bolivar Orchestra. It's where they record all their CDs. That's the best anyone in that country has! I know another audiophile who is using Copely Hall in San Diego as his reference to build his stereo. That is a tragedy IMO. That hall SUCKS!!!! But if you are in San Diego ya don't have a lot of options. Good Halls are not a dime a dozen. Bad halls are a reality of live music as are bad seats in good halls. That makes up the vast majority of what real people hear at actual live concerts. The good seats at the good halls are the exception not the rule.
I think your abstract makes an assumption that I can't go with. It assumes that "real" is intrinsically good because it is "real." I assert that "real" when it is done **well** is good because we have 400+ years of experience as concert hall designers, musical instrument makers, composers and musicians, all who have built on the knowledge and experience of the past to make a better aesthetic experience. BUT!!! I would also assert that the reference used in that 400+ years of development was purely aesthetic beauty and practical utility. That's why it sounds so good WHEN it is all done well. not simply because it is "real." Real was all we had up until the last century. When an acoustician designs a better concert hall we know it because we sit in it and listen and like what we hear better. When a builder of musical instruments makes a better instrument we know it because we listen to it and it sounds better. There is no point of reference. No objective goal. It is purely aesthetic values. And it is remarkably consistent.
I suppose I am arguing from an extremist POV in the world of audio because I am tearing down a fundamental basic axiom of hifi that audio is about accuracy. After all it is called "hi fidelity." Accuracy is IMO only valuable in so far as it serves our aesthetic values. But the aesthetic values ALWAYS rule the preference. When accuracy and aesthetic excellence are at odds with each other (and that happens a lot these days) accuracy should yield. To say otherwise is to say there is something wrong with our aesthetics. And that I don't accept.
Edits: 07/29/15
"The sound of live music" is the total sum of experience (good and bad, accurate and inaccurate) that each of us has with live musicians in actual locales playing their instruments. (I'm tempted to add "their ACOUSTIC instruments" - but let's not go there for now!) As listeners, we distill this experience into ideas as to what the musical instruments should sound like in various acoustic environments. So. . .
I'm asserting that the "listening committees", who helped the earliest concert hall builders and acousticians develop an objective/accurate measurement system to improve the acoustics of the halls, were, just like today's listeners, guided by the same process of distilling their listening experiences into their ideas as to what most accurately represents the sound of live music. This distillation is NOT the average of their listening experiences, but is rather a knowledge of the possible range of these experiences - from bad to good. And it's their idea of the ACCURATE representation of the good that forms the basis of their judgements. That's why I said that Venezuelan Concert Hall that you brought up as an example was not relevant - because of the poor quality of the acoustics, etc. And actually, I was wrong about that - the experience of that hall would be one more blip on the continuum from bad to good (i.e., less accurate representations of the instruments to more accurate representations). BTW, I had never heard that story about the "listening committees" who helped the acousticians, but I do trust you on this.
I also agree with you about the unfortunate listeners who have never experienced a live performance that can give them a conception of the kind of ideal I just described. Although I've never been to Copley Hall, I accept your portrayal of its horrific acoustics. But it seems to me that you're hung up on the fact that an accurate sonic representation of that hall in Venezuela would be no one's idea of good sound. (And that would be right!) But the accuracy I'm describing is a kind of Platonic ideal in itself: the recorded representation of god-like instruments in god-like acoustic environments. (And, yes, I'm serious about this!)
When I talk about accuracy, I mean an accurate rendering of an ideal based on live experiences of real musicians in real halls. That some listeners' ideals are so warped because their live experiences are limited to bad halls is, as you say, a tragedy. You are also correct that the good seats at the good halls are the exception, not the rule. But I recall promotional literature for a number of recording companies which had as their selling point their ability to place their microphones in an ideal location - a spot where a listener could never actually sit, fifteen feet above the conductor's head or wherever. The accurate capture of sound from such "ideal" locations is, to me, a valid goal of music reproduction. To the extent that we don't hear that ideal faithfully (i.e., accurately) captured, preserved and regenerated, we become to the same extent disillusioned and disappointed.
You said it yourself: "Accuracy is IMO only valuable in so far as it serves our aesthetic values." But I say that our aesthetic values derive from our total experience with the absolute standard, which is real music in real space - even if it's a bad experience, it still still influences our aesthetic judgement. And it still influences our ideals. Think of it this way: how certain would you be that Mozart (for instance) was a great composer if you didn't have composers such as Dittersdorf to kick around? ;-)
""The sound of live music" is the total sum of experience (good and bad, accurate and inaccurate) that each of us has with live musicians in actual locales playing their instruments. (I'm tempted to add "their ACOUSTIC instruments" - but let's not go there for now!) As listeners, we distill this experience into ideas as to what the musical instruments should sound like in various acoustic environments. So. . . "
First one little point. There is no "accurate" and "inaccurate" when talking about live music. It is live music. It is always accurate to live music. Now the big point. It starts with a question. Why should we care about the *sound* of live acoustic music? What makes it a thing of value to us?
"This distillation is NOT the average of their listening experiences, but is rather a knowledge of the possible range of these experiences - from bad to good. And it's their idea of the ACCURATE representation of the good that forms the basis of their judgements.'
I can not speak for "early" listening panels. I don't even know if they existed. But the listening panels used to evaluate hall acoustics to create the objective metric we now have never considered "accuracy" of representation. that was not on the list of qualities being evaluated.
How would one rate the "accuracy" of the presentation of live music in a concert hall under evaluation? Accuracy can only be measured against a reference. What is the reference by which one measures the "accuracy" of live music? And if there were such a reference wouldn't that create a ceiling of excellence? Concert halls have been getting better. That doesn't happen by using an existing reference as a goal.
" I also agree with you about the unfortunate listeners who have never experienced a live performance that can give them a conception of the kind of ideal I just described. Although I've never been to Copley Hall, I accept your portrayal of its horrific acoustics. But it seems to me that you're hung up on the fact that an accurate sonic representation of that hall in Venezuela would be no one's idea of good sound. (And that would be right!) But the accuracy I'm describing is a kind of Platonic ideal in itself: the recorded representation of god-like instruments in god-like acoustic environments. (And, yes, I'm serious about this!)"
I think this is a fine model by which recording engineers can use to make better recordings and equipment designers can use to make better equipment. But what it gives us is a glimpse of aesthetic excellence. Not an objective reference. It's a good guide because it helps inform us on the upper achievements of sonic excellence. But accuracy for the sake of accuracy is misguided. Accuracy as a means of achieving aesthetic excellence is a reasonable methodology **in so far as it does serve the aesthetic. when the two deviate the accuracy should cease to be the goal. And they do deviate quite often.
"
You said it yourself: "Accuracy is IMO only valuable in so far as it serves our aesthetic values." But I say that our aesthetic values derive from our total experience with the absolute standard, which is real music in real space - even if it's a bad experience, it still still influences our aesthetic judgement. And it still influences our ideals. Think of it this way: how certain would you be that Mozart (for instance) was a great composer if you didn't have composers such as Dittersdorf to kick around? ;-)"
Well that IS the big question. From where do our aesthetic values come? I think there is a very subtle problem that can come from this. Who serves whom? Does the music serve the listener or does the listener serve the music? Is the point of that experience to *correct* our aesthetics or to simply better inform them? Does there come a point with this obsession with accuracy where audiophiles will actually say aesthetically inferior sound is the better choice because it is more accurate? Well I can tell ya, some audiophiles already take that position and with the argument that it represents the artists'/producers' artistic intent.
audiophiles need to get by the dogmatic idea that accuracy = better sound always. Well, I guess they don't need to. But I have and it's been such a relief.
In the examples you've provided (Venezuela, Copley Hall), yes, I think we can agree that merely getting an accurate sound of those halls would be a pretty woeful endeavor. I think we also probably agree that there's a different sense in which the term "accuracy" can be used. It's this other sense of accuracy that might lead us to choose better halls, better instruments, better microphone placements, etc.
I don't know if you remember my post a few years ago about the time I saw the Vienna Philharmonic live at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. In one sense, it was an overwhelmingly beautiful sound. But in the most important sense (i.e., was the sound I was hearing the actual sound they were producing?), it was deceptive and scandalous - because what I was hearing was NOT the Vienna Philharmonic itself, but rather the Vienna Philharmonic as manipulated by some dweeb in the control room running the Constellation "virtual reality sound system" that some doofus decided to have installed in that hall. I will never attend a concert in Zellerbach again. (I'll put up with it for ballets, but NEVER for concerts!) You get my drift?
yeah, I think I get your drift. what you got was good but it wasn't what you wanted. Like ordering the fish and getting the most amazing steak you ever had. If you came for fish it doesn't matter how good the steak was. It isn't what you ordered.P.S. I think when we talk about accuracy we need to be very dictionary about it and clear as to exactly what we are talking about being accurate to. Otherwise we can easily talk past each other.
Edits: 07/30/15
I have answered all of your questions. My answers make perfect sense to me, but it's as if you simply won't accept them because they are notably different than your answers might be. Also, I'm growing tired of this discussion as it has turned into a major derailment of the thread. Not my intention, at all.I will reiterate, however, that "Live Sound" is easily identifiable in a recording if you know what real, live sound can sound like. And "good sound" at a live event is readily identifiable to most people. Read or re-read some of my other posts for my definition of what "good" live sound might be. My typing fingers are starting to wear out.
These things I've said make sense to me and to most people I've talked to, but not to you. Sorry about that.
Edits: 07/28/15 07/28/15
Agree , but it will never sound "correct" without the right blend .....
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: