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In Reply to: RE: Great discussion - and I hope you don't mind my jumping in posted by Analog Scott on July 28, 2015 at 17:30:12
Yeah, I hear you Scott. Not only do we have our abstractions as to what an accurate and faithful capture should sound like, but we also have our idealizations as to what the capture should sound like too. In the best of all possible worlds, there would be no difference between the two! ;-)
Follow Ups:
You see when we judge sound quality of live music we have no standard or reference that we use as a goal. It really does just amount to how much it appeals to our personal aesthetic values. IOW if you like how live music sounds it sounds good.
so if this is our "reference" and yet that reference when you take a good hard close look at it ultimately is "if it sounds good to us it is good" then why can't we just cut to the chase and say the same for audio recording and playback?
And let's look at the opposite. Let's say we do choose to make "accuracy" our reference. Does that mean, for instance, that the recording of Yuja in Venezuela would be objectively better had they left in the orchestral imbalances, the poor piano tone and the horrific audience noise? It certainly would be more accurate. No way it would sound "better." So should we take "accuracy" over aesthetic beauty when they are at odds with each other?
I say no. I say sounds good = is good. I don't care about accuracy.
Yes you do. Maybe you hate to admit it?
Everyone cares about "accuracy". You depend on it and so do I. Who would want a recording labelled "Beethoven's 9th symphony" that did not sound like that thing?
No, I don't care about accuracy.
Please tell me how accuracy applies to the evaluation of live music? How do you determine the level of "accuracy" of the sound of any live concert? If that is the standard of excellence then you can surely answer that question. Do you sit at an actual live concert and say,"yeah, this sounds great! It sounds very very accurate." ?? How does accuracy come into play with live music and why should I care about it?
Edits: 07/28/15
When it comes to recorded music. I do not enjoy a solo piano recording that has the bass on the left and the treble on the right. So that is the way a pianist hears it, but as a listener I hear the opposite. It is extremely distracting.Another example would be when a drum set in a recording has little or no reverb and then a saxophone or singer has too much reverb and sounds like it is in a different room. I could give many examples, but you get the idea.
Lots of good music destroyed due to poor engineering and or mastering choices that make something sound nothing like the real thing.
Edits: 07/29/15
"When it comes to recorded music. I do not enjoy a solo piano recording that has the bass on the left and the treble on the right. So that is the way a pianist hears it, but as a listener I hear the opposite. It is extremely distracting."
See, this is an artifact of recording. In concert you absolutely do not get this kind of directionality from a piano. 80% of the sound comes from the soundboard underneath and it is essentially a mono source.
I never said a recording is an exact replication of hearing the performance.
I never said you did say that. But you did say this about live piano sound.
"When it comes to recorded music. I do not enjoy a solo piano recording that has the bass on the left and the treble on the right. So that is the way a pianist hears it, ***but as a listener I hear the opposite.*** It is extremely distracting."
Unless you are standing directly in front of the open lid of the piano and are very very close to it, that is not how a piano sounds in real life. Most of the sound comes from the sound board underneath and all the notes resonate off that board. Here is a nice little article that touches on the radiation patterns of an actual piano. They do not produce treble on the left and bass on the right. The sound comes from all over the instrument. They don't image based on the note played unless you are standing right in front of the open lid. and then only marginally so.
In a concert environment there will likely be no seats that would allow one to hear this kind of note dependent imaging.
As a listener you shouldn't be hearing bass on the left or right or treble on the left or right.
OTOH if you like hearing Bass on the right and treble on the left there is nothing wrong with that.
So, Scott, it seems that in the case of a piano recording, you want accuracy - at least as far as it relates to the element of directionality! ;-)
BTW, I've heard a number of recordings that even have the pianist's perspective wrong - the engineer somehow got the bass notes on the right and the treble notes on the left. Maybe they thought that was "better than real"! ;-)
"So, Scott, it seems that in the case of a piano recording, you want accuracy - at least as far as it relates to the element of directionality! ;-)"
How did you come to that conclusion? I stated absolutely no preference when it comes to how piano recordings image.
It's really not a priority for me one way or another. There are soooo many other things about piano sound that matter more to me be it live or recorded.
Hi Chris,
You understand exactly where I am coming from. I certainly don't want the microphones inside the piano like many pop and jazz recordings. It's also distracting hearing too much of the hammer strike.
What is accuracy in the case of a piano recording?
A real piano varies in sound based on the make, model, individual build, age of the piano, weather, concert hall/acoustic space, where you sit and who is playing it. A live piano can sound amazing and it can sound abrasive. It can sound anywhere in between.
I want the sound to sound good, preferably wonderful. Whether it is a live piano or a recording. My standards are the same for both and my goals are the same in terms of sound quality. Aesthetic excellence. any "accuracy" (and we will never know)we get with playback is incidental.
I'll tell you what I don't want with recording and playback. An accurate rendering of bad sound.
"A live piano can sound amazing and it can sound abrasive. It can sound anywhere in between. "
Yes, but a live piano always sounds like a live piano.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Of course that is a tautological point. But so what? What good is a crap sounding live piano? Do you want that just because it is live?
I can point you to discussions that show otherwise
About twelve years ago, there was a(n) (in)famous recording of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Sawallisch on the Water Lily label. (The title was "In Nature's Realm", and it contained music by Liszt and Dvorak.) This recording was made in the old Philadelphia Academy of Music, which, by then (because of all the renovations), had a shockingly bone dry acoustic. My understanding is that some of the orchestra members had such devotion to that hall that they actively lobbied the orchestra management to allow a commercial recording to be made there. They got their wish, and, moreover, they contracted with a company (Water Lily) that was famous for its minimally microphoned (and accurate!) approach to engineering. This album was also a very early instance where a 24/96 recording was actually made available to consumers - I think it even pre-dated DVD-Audio, and was available as a regular, audio-only DVD. But of course, you can imagine the result: what we hear on this recording is the accurate rendering of the hall's bone dry acoustics - very unflattering to the orchestra.
OK, so in one sense, I find this recording woefully lacking in hall reverberation. I keep thinking to myself, geez, why didn't they just record in a better hall? But, in another sense, I do RESPECT this recording, because, now, at least I have an idea as to what music in that hall really sounds like. Sure, I accept your observation that it will sound different in different seats. But, in general, I think this recording captures the quality of the hall - so I DO respect it, and I listen to it every so often (it's now on my computer) with fascination and gratitude!
But you don't really "like" the sound do you? my point being that you judge the sound quality on aesthetics not on accuracy. the desire for more reverb is based on your aesthetic values not on your quest for accuracy.
You "respect" it. But is that what you want? A library of recordings you "respect" because of their accuracy?
And as far as "accuracy" goes we need qualifiers to ever say any recording is "accurate." We have to say accurate from a specific location in the hall and accurate on the specific playback gear used to listen to it on.
AND..... there is a whole other aspect to live v. recorded that I have not even gotten into that is huge and really puts the whole idea of accuracy as a goal in question. And that is the visual aspect of live music. It's a fact that we hear what we see. Anticipation bias, sighted bias and the McGurk effect are huge factors in our perceptions of live sound. Huge!!!
. . . is that I get a sense of satisfaction, based on my belief (because I don't KNOW for sure) that I'm hearing what was really there (i.e., where the microphones were), captured with a minimum number of microphones, with a minimal amount of processing, etc. And, yes, I often like things and people that I respect. ;-)
You're right that we do need qualifiers, and, as I mentioned when I first broke in to this discussion, much of our sense of accuracy about a recording is actually based on FAITH, since hardly any of us were at the actual sessions where the recording was made, and even if we were there, our ears were not where the microphones were (with the exception of binaural recordings, and even then it's highly unlikely), and, unless we listen to the playback via headphones ourselves, we're getting the mixuture of our room acoustics with the recording acoustics.
I think you're probably right about the visual aspect of live music - and it's funny how a lot of listeners prefer NOT to watch recorded performances on DVD or blu-ray, because they get "distracted" by the visuals. Of course, on rare occasions, I get distracted by the visuals at live concerts and prefer not to watch too! (Not with Yuja however!) But again, the visual aspects are something which could be qualified in the definition.
Just because you might need a lot of qualifiers doesn't mean you can't aim for a certain type of accuracy. ;-)
I am quite happy to let all audiophiles aim for whatever they want to aim for. But I do think "accuracy" and excellence have far less overlap than most audiophiles fully realize and/or would like to believe.
To further explore my point about the visuals. Take imaging. Most of us love it. Most of us love to be able to be transported to a sound space that is completely different than our listening room that has a great sense of width, depth and height. And we mostly love to hear the instruments in very distinct places in that sound stage. And we mostly love to hear them with a sense of body and sense of air around them.
Now let's consider something like a string quartet and how that literally images in a live performance. It really doesn't. We perceive imaging though because we see the musicians playing and we know what each individual instrument looks like and sounds like. So we get the McGurk effect and we see imaging that we fully perceive as hearing. Our eye/brain mechanism does most of the "imaging." Much of the emotional content of the performance comes through the physical playing that we see int he musician's performance too. We loose so much without those visuals. And I think a lot of inaccuracies help compensate for those losses and actually fool most listeners into thinking that they are actually more accurate (lower in added distortion)
IMO I like audiophile imaging and sound stage when listening to recordings. It helps compensate for what I loose by not seeing the musicians play. IMO a literally more accurate audio only rendition of the imaging one would hear in concert without the visuals and the knowledge of where the instruments are placed on the stage would be considered quite subjectively inferior and even less "realistic"
. . . if you're sitting close enough (and you're in the center), you'll hear the imaging in a live concert too, with or without the visuals. And of course, the microphones are where your ears could never be - which also helps. And I want an accurate sound from where those microphones are! ;-)
I do agree with you though that if you're out further in the hall, you are not going to get this kind of imaging, and if the microphones were that far out into the hall, we wouldn't hear very good imaging on the recording either - even if the recording were 100% accurate from that location! ;-)
But you will never get accurate sound from where the microphones are. There is always a mix done in post.
I think you might be surprised just how much imaging we think we hear live is actually what we see live. Are you familiar with the McGurk effect? It's freaky. What you see changes what you hear and knowing about it doesn't make it stop.
Even beyond the McGurk effect, the whole question of psychology when listening is rarely taken into account by listeners - and particularly by audio reviewers! I also loved the experiment they did with wine, where the results were that the more expensive the wine that the tasters thought they were drinking, the better they thought it tasted, even when it was really the cheapest swill! (Someone should alert the ethernet cable subjectivists to this phenomenon - LOL!)
To your first point, maybe we'll never get completely accurate sound. But, in general and IMHO, the closer we approach accuracy, the better - and that's a worthy goal even though there's an aesthetic component to our listening too. As JM likes to say, YMMV and FWIW.
Me too.
I, for one, never said that "accuracy" applies to the evaluation of live music in any way, shape, or form. Maybe it does, but I never said that it does. I'm beginning to think that maybe you are starting to go off on a strange sort of tangent here, though.
I might *judge* a live event (or a recording) according to both "subjective" and "objective" standards, but almost none of this has anything to do with the judgment of "accuracy" (to my mind) - unless there's a question about the "accurate" reading of a musical score(?).
Oh well...
Nevertheless, it might be worth remembering that (in some ways at least) a band of musicians might not sound "subjectively good" if they do not hold themselves to certain "objective standards" - standards that some might view as being related to any one of various *types* of "accuracy". But in general, the word "accuracy" does not come to mind when I listen to live music.
The word "accuracy" mostly comes to mind when I listen to recordings. Remember, I try not to "judge" the two things - music and recordings - in the same exact manner. They are somewhat different from each other in some important ways, I believe.
You still have yet to answer any questions about what standards you use to judge the sound quality of live music.
You also have yet to make any logical argument as to why live music and recorded music should be judged by different standards when it comes to sound quality.
Well then, let me see here...
I would say that when the room and the music being played (either in live sound or in hifi playback) interact in a complimentary and harmonious way, then the music is clearly heard, tonal balance seems smooth and well-balanced, and overall "sound quality" is at it's optimum in such a scenario.
That said, the sound we hear on a recording is a mixture of "real" sounding ingredients and the residue of "the art of recording" - all stuffed together in one swell package. It should be judged as if it is referring to something besides itself - not completely perhaps, but for the most part.
Live music, however, is simply *reality*. It can be judged on it's own merits alone. It's "sound quality" will vary somewhat at different points in the venue, but I think that most would agree that clarity and intelligibility combined with smooth and balanced room tone constitute *good* live sound.
Simply put, recorded sound should each be judged as if it was closely related to live music while being significantly different from it in some ways.
These are my beliefs. And, my beliefs are based upon actual experiences (see above) which I consider to be relevant to the here and now of this discussion.
Re-read my posts again. I believe that I've basically said or implied all of this stuff, at least once or twice before.
Actually this is the first time you answered the question as to what standards you use to judge live music.
"I would say that when the room and the music being played (either in live sound or in hifi playback) interact in a complimentary and harmonious way, then the music is clearly heard, tonal balance seems smooth and well-balanced, and overall "sound quality" is at it's optimum in such a scenario."
That is basically a breakdown of your personal aesthetics. In short you judge live music by whether or not it sounds good to you, good being a set of qualities you describe above. there is no reference other than your aesthetics.
Great. I'll by that.
But you don't really answer WHY audio playback should be judged by a reference. You simply restate that you think it should.
But this was progress.
I think that have "really" answered all of your questions so far, several times over perhaps. Everything has been clearly implied if not stated outright, over and over again.That said, everything we do, every choice we make, etc.., *INVOLVES* personal beliefs or aesthetics, of course. But you almost seem to be inordinately hung up on this idea of *free* or disembodied aesthetics. Anyone who believes that a good recording is not a reference (and therefore deserving of honor and respect in it's own right) is simply not into "hifi".
The "fidelity" part of "hi-fidelity" is supposed to refer to the existence of some definite and real things, as Holt points out. I agree with most of what Holt says here, and any disagreements I might have with him are basically insignificant ones, IMO. He and I basically blood brothers, I think, although he himself might have been hesitant to define our spiritual relationship as such when he was alive.
I think that aesthetics normally grow out of relatively "objective" sensual observations. We "know" or remember what real live music sounds like to us once we listen to it. And I dare say that most of us build our systems in honor of that which we recognize as "the sound of music" on decent recordings.
I think that, with the help of a good system, it is possible to hear good recordings pretty much as they were meant to be heard. Maybe we'll never know EXACTLY how a good recording is supposed to sound, but we can get *very close* to that goal with the help of research, practice, and patience.
If you set up a good pair of speakers in an appropriately sized room the way they are intended to be set up and you play a good recording, your chances of hearing that recording as it was meant to be heard are pretty high, I'd say. But, following such a procedure would involve some *trust* on your part, and I feel that you probably mistrust almost anything GIVEN at this point in your audiophile career.
All that remains to be done (after we have taken steps to ensure that good recordings can be heard pretty much as they were meant to be heard) is some final tweaking of the system so that it sounds *listenable* as well as "accurate". Doing this does not mean that something very close to "objective listening" hasn't been accomplished on my part, though.
Edits: 07/29/15 07/29/15 07/29/15 07/29/15
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