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This perpetuates the myth... (long)

Posted by Presto (A) on April 13, 2012 at 11:26:55

In Reply to: "Trying to emulate live sound is pie in the sky" posted by audiozorro on March 31, 2012 at 21:10:55:

...that our systems are all terribly flawed and that magic is hidden deep with the grooves of the spinning discs and we just have to spend a lifetime of fretting, fussing, tweaking, upgrading etc. to get towards this goal of sonic nirvana. The belief that the magic is on the disc and 90% of the "damage" that converts live music into what we hear at home is due to our sources, interconnects, amplifiers, speakersm, speaker cables and room geometry and treatments. Not that these things can't help, and produce a much more pleasing experience, I think the idea that "doing it right" can "transport one back to the original event" is a panacea and ultimately an audiophile legend. Yes, I've sat in front of some very IMPRESSIVE sound stages in my day - systems from 10's to even 100's of thousands in rooms with as many room treatments as some stereos. But is it a recreation of the original event? I'd say moreso an 'impressive facsimilie' at best... Just the acoustics of the original venue is so much lost in translation from live to recorded. Polarity of microphones, phase distortion, group delay, equalization, reverb and time domain effects, compression... so many things that detract from the original acoustics and sounds "as we would have heard them".

I think 90% of the "loss" when going from live to canned music happens due to losses and artifacts in the recording chain from the microphones, mixers, digital audio workstation, mixing, effects/compression/eq/panning and then mastering, and normally a DAC->ADC of the final mix before stamping record or CD. The late great Dr. Harvey Rosenburg himself believed that most damage happens in the transducer which changes air pressure changes (sound waves) into a minute electrical signal... the common microphone. This means the bulk of the damage to the 'live event sound' is already done long before the music is even purchased. Audiophiles meddle in the 10%, while believing they can get "transported to the original event" with the right amount of time, effort, dollars and "experience". I don't believe in this mantra at all, although I am all for assembling a system with the most dynamics and transparency and imaging "capability" possible. But I strongly believe that soundstaging is an aesthetic thing and not something that can be "done right". And this is a VERY important part of the debate on the "create live sound" issue:

I do NOT think that we lack the capacity in the areas of frequency response and dynamics. I think the "getting it to sound live" quest is ultimately flawed because of the damage done to time-domain information first in the recording process and only SECOND in the playback process. When have you seen a dummy wearing a binaural head set recording a symphony? You haven't. Mics are spread out above the performers, on individual instruments as "pick-ups" or most likely both methods. Sure, ARTIFACTS of the original venue are caught in these individual microphones, but the net result is a smear of dozens of vantage points of the event. You cannot "hear" an event from 12 different locations at once, nor would you want to! Not to mention "mic bleed" with mics picking up sounds from other sections or instruments. Yes, non-binaural two mic recordings would be a better compromise, but how many of them are there even out there? And what happens to "perceived" soundstage when these mics are 10, or 20 or 50 feet apart? Audiophiles are obsessed with soundstage SIZE... the bigger, wider, deeper taller huger the better. Why do they think this way? Their room is smaller than the concert hall, so naturally they need their system to make the music BIG again! Uncompress it, if you will. But there are serious flaws with this seemingly basic and widely accepted "logic".

1. The time-domain "information" is not even on the recording
2. Even if it was, the time-domain behavior and reflections in the listening room would need to be addressed.
3. Doing #2 is still debated endlessly. Some believe in room treatments only, some use digital time-domain correction and equalization methods. Some use both. Digital room correction is widely debated - some loving it and some saying it's drawbacks are not worth it's gains.

Very few audiophiles use adequate room treatments. They say that an anechoic environment (the most neutral environment possible) is TOO DEAD when theoretically it should interfere less with time domain info "trapped" in the recording. Why? Audiophiles WANT a certain amount of listening room effects - the reflections and time-domain alterations and add to the pleasant effect of the 3D soundscape. But is this "closer to the live event"? No. It's more pleasing, but even FURTHER from the truth if one were to analyse it from a technical perspective.

This is just my opinion of course. But when I hear things like "accurate placement of instruments in the soundstage" I start to chuckle and then become very vocal. "Believable Placememt" maybe, but there is no such thing as "correct location in the soundstage" except under very controlled conditions, with mics in specific locations, paying careful attention to relative polarity, and minimalization of effects in the studio, especially when it comes to "panning" mics across a virtual sound field. In theory, binaural recordings and a neutralized room (DRC/treatments) would give the closest time domain performance. But most audiophiles who have heard binaural recordings don't like the effect, and say the process detracts from the intented goal rather than making it a reality. Maybe audiophiles just like the "fantasy" soundstage better anyways. And there would be NOTHING wrong with that, so long as we don't fool ourselves and attempt to call it a "more accurate reproduction of the live event".

I'd say if it's still fun, the things we fuss over, then do it. But if it's becoming audiophile nervosa it may be time to just embrace the reality of it all. Recreating the "live event" is basically not do-able with the way the vast majority of present-day recordings are made. . Granted, if the sound makes you FEEL like you are there, it really does not matter if the physics is "correct".

I guess for me it comes down to semantics:

"Recreating the live event at home - transporting back to the event"
Utter Hogwash.

"Recreating the event in such a way it connects you with the live feeling".
That I will buy into. And I've seen it done and done it myself.

(Flame suit on. Ears are tin. System is not resolving enough. Don't buy music from the right labels. Don't use vinyl... ya ya ya. Etc. etc. ad infinitum ad nauseum...)

Last night I had a guitarist sitting two feet in front of the north wall of my listening room. Pavlo was sitting on a stool and playing for me. The soundstage was NOT this wide, tall, deep, cavernous area. It was small. A man, playing a guitar (wonderfully) on a stool. The screeches of his fingers as they slid over the strings between chords was bone-chilling and goose-bump provoking. Sometimes, we get close - oh so very close. But a full out orchestra? I think we can recreate the SPL and dynamics (depending on the reference seating location, I suppose) but in the time domain?

Fuhgedaboudit.

Cheers,
Presto

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