"Natural" Sound

Perhaps for vocabulary, instead of "natural" we could say "most convincing" system I've heard. For all the caveats of recording technique, mastering technique, and playback, I would argue we all are after the "most convincing" reproduction. Fortunately (or not!), "most convincing" would leave objectivists out of the discussion as there's no measure of "most convincing" (same too of "natural" as the case may be, though on this thread alone there are pages of argument).

"Most convincing" would allow for lots of subjective argument, but it would boil down to "most convincing—to me". I've heard some really great systems who's owner would argue his system is completely "natural" sounding but which lacked the dynamic visceral punch that is "more convincing" to me of what drums sound like. Sure that system had amazing tone and nuance to the sound of a drum whack, but lacked the ooomph! (I know, highly technical terms here!)

Phelonious Ponk said:

We have been back and forth on this one many times, and perhaps I'm not being clear, because a few folks still don't seem to get it. The question is not "can we recreate such a thing in our living room with current stereo playback systems." The question is more fundamental than that, It is "can we record such a thing to be reproduced by those playback systems," and the answer is no.

That's why, when you search the internet for pictures or walk into any recording studio, even when they're recording unamplified music, what you see are pairs (at least) of mic's hanging five or six feet above string sections, mic's several feet out in front of brass sections, grand pianos mic'd from above their open lids, acoustic guitars with microphones typically only several inches away and pointed, oddly enough, at the point where the neck joins the body. Engineers record these parts and pieces from those positions (and others, but not from your ears' location in the club or concert hall), because that's where they get the best recordings; because that's where they sound best to the microphone. Then they take all of those parts and pieces, put them together in the mix, sometimes add a bit of room ambience or even crowd noise for good measure, and create the illusion of real music in real space. And the illusion of real music in real space is the only thing your stereo playback system reproduces, because that's all it has. It doesn't have any other information to work with.

It's highly unlikely that your collection has even a single recording that was recorded with just a stereo pair of microphones from a typical seat in a performance venue, and if you do, it's highly likely that it doesn't sound very good. That's the reality, and it is only so hard to grasp because people want so badly to believe the illusion, and their precious systems, are more than the are. Believing in it seems to be even more important to some people than enjoying it. This is ultimately a religious discussion.

Tim

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Very well said Tim.

I think I have a higher opinion of good two mic recording when played back well. It is a pale fascimile, but reasonably like the original. But I also find it pleases almost no one. Even those who think it does when they don't know the source of what they are hearing. You are spot on about very few recordings available where just two mics were used. Even companies who have a rep for simpler minimalist recordings rarely use fewer than 4 mics and usually several.

The conversation:

X :I heard a system that sounds natural

Y: Who are you to say its natural, you dont know natural from diddly squat
you dont know what natural sounds like , define natural....blah blah blah

Au contraire,I think your position is quite clear and has substantial subtext. I keep trying to give examples but they don't seem to stick either. Let me try again.Creating Real music in real space is different from recreating a particular live musical event. Capturing the ambiance of a particular hall is a daunting task.
Because stereo only involves spacial aspects of a recording we can create those spatial aspects. If it's a studio recording we can create what we want. Or if it is live we duplicate. We do need a system that is capable of handling the information. We know how the ear/brain detects what is coming from the left to right, bottom or top. We Know It does this b detecting different arrival times and loudness. We can even tell if the sound source is moving toward us. The process of how we arrive at this may causeisome to deem it "unreal."
Let us consider the game show Wheel of Fortune. You are asked to guess a phrase. They give you clues n the form of letters. If you are able to guess the word with the least amount of clues you win. The question is how many clues can we provide for you . That is to say iif Miles Davis is standing in front; Sarah Vaughn is to his right; John Coltrane is to the left side;Tony Williams on drums in the back; and Ray Brown on bass at the back right. We can capture the fidelity of those musicians. We also cam also create their relative positions of each musician. We need only provide the same spatial clues we use to detect predators .We need to know where that predator is located how far away it is and the direction its coming form,We can detect how far away it is.
Id we go back to our wheel of fortune example. We know then we have a general clue of what category the phrase is in. we know vowels anf certain consonants and consonant blends are likely to recur. We have a similar situation when we put on a record. WE may not have all the information. Luckily we don't have to the ear brain is quite capable of filling in the gaps. Much like we fill in the missing letters. The more letters the easier the puzzle is to guess. the more detail the playback system and recording is able to retrieve the more"convincing" the recording is.
There is more information in recordings than most playback systems are able to retrieve.. Just as some contestants are able to decipher the phrase with less clues than others. Some audiophiles are able to suspend disbelief with far less clues than others. Indeed some requre a much higher level of convincing than others. Noise and distortions subtract from the audiophiles ability to suspend disbelief much more than others.
I respectfully disagree. With fine recordings excellent playback systems and open minded listeners the e audiophile can experience a quite realistic music reproduction. I know I have.

This thread again reminds me of a Led Zepplin song.

How many more times.................................

thedudeabides said:

This thread again reminds me of a Led Zepplin song.

How many more times.................................

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Come on get with the times man! (one dude to another ya know bra) At least it reminds you of a good song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpJDOXxuSLo

(Just finished setting up some video speakers. After positioning and measuring this was the first music I played. Good choice. Rather modest fi on the recording and still a great Rock song that was a pleasure to hear)

Bobvin said:

Perhaps for vocabulary, instead of "natural" we could say "most convincing" system I've heard. For all the caveats of recording technique, mastering technique, and playback, I would argue we all are after the "most convincing" reproduction. Fortunately (or not!), "most convincing" would leave objectivists out of the discussion as there's no measure of "most convincing" (same too of "natural" as the case may be, though on this thread alone there are pages of argument).

"Most convincing" would allow for lots of subjective argument, but it would boil down to "most convincing—to me". I've heard some really great systems who's owner would argue his system is completely "natural" sounding but which lacked the dynamic visceral punch that is "more convincing" to me of what drums sound like. Sure that system had amazing tone and nuance to the sound of a drum whack, but lacked the ooomph! (I know, highly technical terms here!)

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Audio people have been using extensively and successfully the word "natural" and "naturalness" for decades, why should we change it? Just to please a few people in WBF?

Rodney Gold said:

The conversation:

X :I heard a system that sounds natural

Y: Who are you to say its natural, you dont know natural from diddly squat
you dont know what natural sounds like , define natural....blah blah blah

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That's not how conversations go within our 'Boston group' of WBF audiophiles. We are often in good agreement with what we mean by 'natural', 'convincing' or 'realistic'. But then, we also have quite a bit of experience with the sounds of unamplified live music.

deleted

PeterA said:

my comments are simply meant to reflect how those systems sounded to me when I heard them. They did not sound identical to the real thing, they never could, BUT they reminded me of the natural sound of acoustic instruments that I have heard live, and that resemblance to the real thing helps me to suspend my disbelief and provides a deeper, richer emotional connection to the music.

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+1. I think it's hard for people to grasp that when we talk about "natural sound" we are only talking about a good illusion of the real thing, which DOES NOT necessarily mean it is identical to the real thing or even close. So since I like drawing parallels as examples, let me draw another one.

Think of video and televisions; we calibrate our televisions to get as accurate a picture as we can; but we are limited by the quality of the recorded video and by TV technology itself. That means: a) the dynamic range can never be captured or reproduced accurately - i.e. we will never get bright sunlight in our TV room, nor will be able to see the tiniest details of the darkest of skies; and b) because of how video works with respect to captured color space - where we just don't capture all of the true colors (think Adobe RGB covering only 50% of visible colors and sRBG even less) - our TVs cannot possibly reproduce true lifelike colors. Yet, despite these limitations, a calibrated TV can look natural if the recorded video is of commensurate quality, because it offers a very good semblance of the real thing - devoid of many distortions that a non-calibrated or lower-quality TV exhibits - even though it's not projecting the real thing.

Here is another example of the term "natural" being used by a member of this forum to convey meaning about an audio system. The post is from a thread describing different Pass Labs amplifiers. The interesting thing is that no one has asked in this instance, or in Steve's or David's system threads, to clarify the meaning of the term when used to describe their systems.

Alpinist said:

I loved the sound of my K-01/XP-30/XA-100.5/Salon 2 system. Warm, natural and gorgeous sounding. I moved to the XA-100.8 and initially thought it was a major upgrade due to the improved clarity and transparency. But after a time, I realized the magic that I had with the XA-100.5 was long gone. I ended up selling the XA-100.8. Moral of this story, go for the XA-160.5. Just my opinion.

Best,
Ken

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ack said:

+1. I think it's hard for people to grasp that when we talk about "natural sound" we are only talking about a good illusion of the real thing, which DOES NOT necessarily mean it is identical to the real thing or even close. So since I like drawing parallels as examples, let me draw another one.

Think of video and televisions; we calibrate our televisions to get as accurate a picture as we can; but we are limited by the quality of the recorded video and by TV technology itself. That means: a) the dynamic range can never be captured or reproduced accurately - i.e. we will never get bright sunlight in our TV room, nor will be able to see the tiniest details of the darkest of skies; and b) because of how video works with respect to captured color space - where we just don't capture all of the true colors (think Adobe RGB covering only 50% of visible colors and sRBG even less) - our TVs cannot possibly reproduce true lifelike colors. Yet, despite these limitations, a calibrated TV can look natural if the recorded video is of commensurate quality, because it offers a very good semblance of the real thing - devoid of many distortions that a non-calibrated or lower-quality TV exhibits - even though it's not projecting the real thing.

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Ack, I like this analogy. I had my Pioneer Elite Kuro Plasma TV professionally calibrated. The technician told me that the colors in general, and the skin tones in particular, would look more natural after the calibration. He was right. The result was not dissimilar to properly aligning the tonearm and cartridge on my turntable to achieve a more natural sound out of the system.

PeterA said:

Here is another example of the term "natural" being used by a member of this forum to convey meaning about an audio system. The post is from a thread describing different Pass Labs amplifiers. The interesting thing is that no one has asked in this instance, or in Steve's or David's system threads, to clarify the meaning of the term when used to describe their systems.

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Hi Peter,

For me, natural sounding = organic sounding. Next time, feel free to ask and I'll certainly reply.

Ken

PeterA said:

The interesting thing is that no one has asked in this instance, or in Steve's or David's system threads, to clarify the meaning of the term when used to describe their systems.

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That is because if those natural term naysayers did infect their personal system threads, it would be considered trolling, which is not cool. Ron opened up the term for general discussion and this is the result...questionable bandwidth use after 46 pages. My two cents.

treitz3 said:

My word, gentlemen. When someone said "I did not have sexual relations with....."

Would you have been so analytical about the word "sexual"?

Wait. Don't answer that. You are either pregnant or you are not.

Same thing here. It either sounds natural or it doesn't. 46 pages of banter are not necessary to explain this.

BTW, when did it become substandard, up to debate and controversial on this forum to express that something sounds the way you hear it? Three letters sum this up. WTF?

Tom

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when indeed.

I will tell you when. when the balance of this forum shifted. a number of subjectivists left, replaced by lots of objectivists.

now every idea becomes a struggle.

thread after thread after thread will be like this. I might as well watch the news about the U.S. Congress.

Perhaps time to close this thread like all the others of a similar ilk that have proceeded this one.

With all due respect and in IMHO, there is an amazing amount of apparent personal insecurity and paranoia regarding those who continue to participate in these type O v S discussions.

Isn't, in the end, the enjoyment of music that matters.

May I humbly suggest that you all seek a more healthy alternative. These types of discussions are truly the equivalent of mental masturbation.

And, dare I say, the moderators have to take some portion of responsibility for allowing these threads types to continue on a repetitive basis.

Just a thought.

thedudeabides said:

Perhaps time to close this thread like all the others of a similar ilk that have proceeded this one.

With all due respect and in IMHO, there is an amazing amount of apparent personal insecurity and paranoia regarding those who continue to participate in these type O v S discussions.

Isn't, in the end, the enjoyment of music that matters.

May I humbly suggest that you all seek a more healthy alternative. These types of discussions are truly the equivalent of mental masturbation.

And, dare I say, the moderators have to take some portion of responsibility for allowing these threads types to continue on a repetitive basis.

Just a thought.

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May I suggest you guys get over the stereotype. Enjoying music and having a more objective approach isn't diametrically opposed to enjoying music. We can reach a point where we don't worry about which cable is in use and is there something better, do I need to clean up my power with some conditioner and which one using some supposed Quantum process should it be, does jitter still corrupt my music making it sound "un-natural". We instead can put together a good system, be on our P's and Q's and then hit play without any worry. Instead I see this stereotype of these extremely anal-retentive types somehow being the ones that really enjoy music because their persnickety sighted bias guides them in only musical enjoyment. People who buy multiple highly expensive pieces of gear just to compare and make sure they stay close to what everyone thinks is the cutting edge. Come on, give me a break dude? Jeez Louise! Somebody needs to change out the sound destroying fuse in their gitty-up machine.

Does jitter have a natural sound to it?

Well if I might conclude with at least this thought and let's put it to rest.

IMHO there is definitely merit in the word "natural" and if not everyone agrees, that's OK but in the end, yup it becomes mental masturbation.

Today I had the good fortune of attending the following.....

Yarlung executive producer J Schlichting joins me in inviting you for a live concert recording session in beautiful Samueli Hall at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa on November 3rd, at 1pm. Restricted to 40 guests (you will be sitting with the musicians, microphones and engineers in the recording space) so please rsvp as soon as convenient.

Repertoire includes James Matheson’s String Quartet with violinist Baird Dodge leading members and family from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the song cycle Times Alone, with New York musicians soprano Laura Strickling and pianist Tom Sauer.

Support for this recording comes from J and Helen Schlichting, as well as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sally and Brad Austin, Aaron Egigian and Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

This was probably as best a definition of "natural" for me, to wit, live unamplified music. In an absolutely magnificent theater where the acoustics were beyond superb and with us right up close and personal with the performers, this was IMO the defintion of natural and as ack pointed out it is just us looking for the best replication of this.

With that let's all go back and do what we do best and sit down and enjoy the music. Better yet, attend some live events. The string quartet I heard today was fabulous followed up by a soprano and piano player that gave you goose bumps. All up close and personal. Live unamplified music. Ed Pong is one lucky man to be recording events such as these as well. Hats off to you folks who bring new musicians to light